Author(s)

Susumu Morita

Department of Biofunctional and Mechanical Systems, Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.

The authors have been studying on the principle of motion generation behind animals, mainly human, and have reached a certain milestone with it in [1]. Because [1] ended up being very interdisciplinary, the author has been looking for an opportunity to close in on the part where we have grasped the conceptual idea of a Lagrangian. This paper proposes the physical meaning or its intuitive concept of a Lagrangian. This is a daring attempt because the topic is over 240 years of enigma, whereby so many have neglected of its absence, and physics has gone further towards its frontiers of their time, and has successfully flourished. Meanwhile, Lagrangian is not getting enough of teachers’ attention on students getting stuck on this function, despite the fact that it is a strong foundation as is only the beginning towards Hamiltonian formalism, general relativity, and modern physics of today. This paper’s sole motive is to answer what the title says in detail, helping each and everyone who faces Lagrangian for their first time. The paper is positioned to be a supplement for [1]. This literature had three topics bound into one. Out of the three, this document focuses in the part of the intuitive meaning of Lagrangian, since the paper had contents related to multiple disciplines. The author finds it worthy to discuss this topic in an independent, more detailed manner.

Hamilton’s Principle, Analytical Mechanics, Classical Mechanics, Lagrangian, Hamiltonian

Morita, S. (2016) Intuitive Concept or Physical Meaning of Lagrangian. World Journal of Mechanics, 6, 84-93. doi: 10.4236/wjm.2016.63007.