Oxford University Press eBooks
Hamilton’s principle
S. G. Rajeev
Abstract
Abstract The variational principle is formulated in first order form, deriving Hamilton's equations. Poisson brackets are found as generating infinitesimal canonical transformations. Symmetries are found to lead to conservation laws. A glimpse of the star product of quantum mechanics is given: the classical Poisson bracket is its infinitesimal approximation. In an exercise, the quantum harmonic oscillator is solved in the star product formalism.