All Questions

I am interested in knowing whether something along the lines of the "diagonal variation" defined below has been studied before. In spirit, the basic idea is that it is a kind of ...

Given a configuration $C$ of $N$ distinct fixed points of equal mass in the plane (eventually in space), let $f_C(N)$ denote the number of points $P$ for which the gravitational field at $P$ vanishes. ...

For years I've taught my honors calculus students about functions like (the continuous extension of) $x^2 \sin 1/x$, and for just as many years I've told them that they won't encounter functions like ...

Let $X$ be a configuration space and $L: TX \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ a Lagrangian. Then I want to show that the Lagrangian flow $F^t(x(0),x'(0)) = (x(t),x'(t))$ preserves the symplectic form just like ...

I have a very basic question in the calculus of variations: Suppose I want to minimize the functional $$A[r, r'] = \int_\Omega L(r, r') dx $$ When is it possible to say that extremals of $A$ agree ...