Tarea 1

Se entrega el Lunes 7 de Junio

1. Show that the geodesics (i.e. shortest distances between two points) of
a spherical surface are great circles, i.e. circles whose centres lie at the
centre of the sphere.

2. Write down the Lagrangian for a projectile (subject to no air resis-

tance), in terms of its Cartesian coordinates (x, y, z), with z measure
vertically upward. Find the three Eurler-Lagrange equations and show
that they are exactly what you would expect for the equations of mo-
tion.

3. A double pendulum is drawn below. Two light rods, of lengths l1 and

l2 , oscillate in the same plane. Attached to them are masses m1 and m2 .
How many degrees of freedom does the system have? Write down the
Lagrangian describing the dynamics. Derive the equations of motion.

4. A particle moves in one dimension, in a potential V (x), where x is the

spatial coordinate. The dynamics are governed by the Lagrangian
1 2 4
L= m ẋ + mẋ2 V (x) − V (x)2 . (1)
12
Show that the resulting equation of motion is identical to that which
arises from the more traditional Lagrangian, L = 12 mẋ2 − V (x).

5. The Lagrangian for a relativistic point particle, of mass m, is

p
L = −mc2 1 − (ṙ · ṙ)/c2 − U (r) (2)

1
where c is the speed of light. Derive the equation of motion, and show
that it reduces to Newton’s equation of motion in the limit |ṙ| ≪ c.