What is a less painful way to study Lagrangian Mechanics?

[lagrangian90]

I am a software engineer/mechanical engineer highly intrigued by the Principal of Least Action. However, a lot of the material on this subject is very tedious and painful to read. I did find one super awesome textbook called The Lazy Universe, by Professor Jennifer Coopersmith. It was an awesome intro to some aspects of the Principal of Least Action...and also built up a great historical context behind the invention of the subject. But...how can I build off this? I want to build more intuition on the subject. Any awesome articles or niche content that you've found?

Also, if anyone is actively putting time into studying this subject, let me know how you've gone about it.

 

[PeroK]

I am a software engineer/mechanical engineer highly intrigued by the Principal of Least Action. However, a lot of the material on this subject is very tedious and painful to read. I did find one super awesome textbook called The Lazy Universe, by Professor Jennifer Coopersmith. It was an awesome intro to some aspects of the Principal of Least Action...and also built up a great historical context behind the invention of the subject. But...how can I build off this? I want to build more intuition on the subject. Any awesome articles or niche content that you've found?

The overview of this book on Amazon says:

It aims to explain ideas rather than achieve technical competence.

There is probably nowhere to go after this book in terms of a purely non-technical understanding. Ultimately, modern physics is a highly mathematical subject. There's no getting round that.

Also, if anyone is actively putting time into studying this subject, let me know how you've gone about it.

Most of us on here are interested in technical competence! I have a copy of Emmy Noether's Wonderful Theorem, by the late Dwight Neuenschwander.

https://books.google.co.uk/books/ab...rful_Theorem.html?id=h6yODgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y

The material in that book, however, is generally advanced undergraduate. You would need to be a serious physics student to get a lot out of that book.

 

[pines-demon]

Maybe I am lucky for not having found Lagrangians painful. I went through the Goldstein by myself because our teacher was a mess, and even with all that I found Lagrangian formalism beautiful. I think that what is key is that if you are already very accustomed to advanced mechanics problems you would see why the Lagrangian is extremely helpful. The Lagrangian asks you to write the coordinates of a system very precisely and you should be able to master that already for Newtonian problems.

 

[lagrangian90]

The Goldstein book looks like a great resource. I think I am going to buy a copy and put some time into that. I've been successful in the past with a few tough subjects (e.g., quantum computing) by finding more "niche" textbooks that cover topics from a slightly different angle or with a slightly unconventional style.

Emmy Noether's Wonderful Theorem looks like a great resource as well, I am going to bookmark this.

Thank you for the help here.

 

[Frabjous]

There’s also a Dover book that you might try
Classical Dynamics by Greenwood