Book Description

Excerpt from An Elementary Treatise on the Calculus of Variations The want of a systematic treatise upon the Calculus of Variations has long been felt. The researches of Poisson, Jacobi, Ostrogradsky, and Delaunay, which have added so much to the completeness of the science as it came from the hands of Lagrange, are only known through the medium of scientific journals and Transactions of learned Societies, and are thus inaccessible to many readers, and inconvenient of access to all. The student has also to complain of the want of a sufficient number of examples to illustrate the principles of the science, a defect which renders these principles, from their very abstract nature, exceedingly difficult to be understood by a beginner. These deficiencies it is the object of the present work to supply. The plan which has been adopted may be briefly stated as follows: After a short introductory sketch of the origin and history of the science, the author has, in the first Chapter, endeavoured to give a clear statement of its principles, considered as a branch of pure Analysis. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.