Advantages of Using Hamilton’s Principle

The least action principle used by Hamilton involves the Lagrangian L

L=T-U,
As it was introduced before. This means that we are dealing with energies and not
forces; which is much easier to deal with.
Actually, in many situations we don’t know these forces, specially forces of
constraint (reaction forces), but still we know well how to calculate energies.
For example, if a particle is confined to move on the surface of a sphere, which
results in the constraint …… x2 + y2 + z2 = r2 and in polar form … r = a.
In this case it is hard to get the force that kept the particle moving on the surface
but not leaving this surface. However, by using the method of variation together
with constraint equations we can determine this force

Later, I will provide a complete solution to this problem but for the moment we
have

Where λ is the force of constraint. I will leave it to you to try using Newtonian
mechanics. The least action proves very powerful tool in quantum and nuclear
physics and in field theories.
One thing needs to be emphasized on is that the above formulation assumes a
conservative force i.e.
 ∂U
This means that the force F= ∂ x and no dissipative forces acting on the system.

But in the next article, I will introduce dissipative forces in the formulation.
Finally, the forces of constraint is introduced in the Hamiltonian formulation by the
use of Lagrange multipliers as follows

Where
f is the
constraint equation

Also, it can be presented in a differential format

This is similar to the exact solution of a first order non-linear D.E., this type of
constraints is called holonomic and they are integrable. On the other hand, some
constraint are not integrable and called nonholonomic:

The above equation of constraint is not integrable (nonholonomic) unless it can be

written as an exact differential as mentioned above:

Of course, the sum is over all the coordinates (x1=x,

x2=y and x3=z in rectangular)

Another advantage of the variational principle (Lagrange equations) is the use of

the generalized coordinates (qi) which can be physical quantity (distance, angle,
momentum, angular momentum and even energy)