Suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of mathematics, physics, or engineering, this introduction to the calculus of variations focuses on variational problems involving one independent variable. It also discusses more advanced topics such as the inverse problem, eigenvalue problems, and Noether’s theorem. The text includes numerous examples along with problems to help students consolidate the material.

Fresh, lively text serves as a modern introduction to the subject, with applications to the mechanics of systems with a finite number of degrees of freedom. Ideal for math and physics students.

This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to the classical and modern calculus of variations, serving as a useful reference to advanced undergraduate and graduate students as well as researchers in the field. Starting from ten motivational examples, the book begins with the most important aspects of the classical theory, including the Direct Method, the Euler-Lagrange equation, Lagrange multipliers, Noether’s Theorem and some regularity theory. Based on the efficient Young measure approach, the author then discusses the vectorial theory of integral functionals, including quasiconvexity, polyconvexity, and relaxation. In the second part, more recent material such as rigidity in differential inclusions, microstructure, convex integration, singularities in measures, functionals defined on functions of bounded variation (BV), and Γ-convergence for phase transitions and homogenization are explored. While predominantly designed as a textbook for lecture courses on the calculus of variations, this book can also serve as the basis for a reading seminar or as a companion for self-study. The reader is assumed to be familiar with basic vector analysis, functional analysis, Sobolev spaces, and measure theory, though most of the preliminaries are also recalled in the appendix.

First truly up-to-date treatment offers a simple introduction to optimal control, linear-quadratic control design, and more. Broad perspective features numerous exercises, hints, outlines, and appendixes, including a practical discussion of MATLAB. 2005 edition.

This book is intended for a first course in the calculus of variations, at the senior or beginning graduate level. The reader will learn methods for finding functions that maximize or minimize integrals. The text lays out important necessary and sufficient conditions for extrema in historical order, and it illustrates these conditions with numerous worked-out examples from mechanics, optics, geometry, and other fields. The exposition starts with simple integrals containing a single independent variable, a single dependent variable, and a single derivative, subject to weak variations, but steadily moves on to more advanced topics, including multivariate problems, constrained extrema, homogeneous problems, problems with variable endpoints, broken extremals, strong variations, and sufficiency conditions. Numerous line drawings clarify the mathematics. Each chapter ends with recommended readings that introduce the student to the relevant scientific literature and with exercises that consolidate understanding.

Clear, rigorous introductory treatment covers applications to geometry, dynamics, and physics. It focuses upon problems with one independent variable, connecting abstract theory with its use in concrete problems. 1962 edition.

This is the first of two books on methods and techniques in the calculus of variations. Contemporary arguments are used throughout the text to streamline and present in a unified way classical results, and to provide novel contributions at the forefront of the theory. This book addresses fundamental questions related to lower semicontinuity and relaxation of functionals within the unconstrained setting, mainly in L^p spaces. It prepares the ground for the second volume where the variational treatment of functionals involving fields and their derivatives will be undertaken within the framework of Sobolev spaces. This book is self-contained. All the statements are fully justified and proved, with the exception of basic results in measure theory, which may be found in any good textbook on the subject. It also contains several exercises. Therefore,it may be used both as a graduate textbook as well as a reference text for researchers in the field. Irene Fonseca is the Mellon College of Science Professor of Mathematics and is currently the Director of the Center for Nonlinear Analysis in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research interests lie in the areas of continuum mechanics, calculus of variations, geometric measure theory and partial differential equations. Giovanni Leoni is also a professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. He focuses his research on calculus of variations, partial differential equations and geometric measure theory with special emphasis on applications to problems in continuum mechanics and in materials science.

Provides a thorough understanding of calculus of variations and prepares readers for the study of modern optimal control theory. Selected variational problems and over 400 exercises. Bibliography. 1969 edition.

This clear and concise textbook provides a rigorous introduction to the calculus of variations, depending on functions of one variable and their first derivatives. It is based on a translation of a German edition of the book Variationsrechnung (Vieweg+Teubner Verlag, 2010), translated and updated by the author himself. Topics include: the Euler-Lagrange equation for one-dimensional variational problems, with and without constraints, as well as an introduction to the direct methods. The book targets students who have a solid background in calculus and linear algebra, not necessarily in functional analysis. Some advanced mathematical tools, possibly not familiar to the reader, are given along with proofs in the appendix. Numerous figures, advanced problems and proofs, examples, and exercises with solutions accompany the book, making it suitable for self-study. The book will be particularly useful for beginning graduate students from the physical, engineering, and mathematical sciences with a rigorous theoretical background.

The calculus of variations is a subject whose beginning can be precisely dated. It might be said to begin at the moment that Euler coined the name calculus of variations but this is, of course, not the true moment of inception of the subject. It would not have been unreasonable if I had gone back to the set of isoperimetric problems considered by Greek mathemati cians such as Zenodorus (c. 200 B. C. ) and preserved by Pappus (c. 300 A. D. ). I have not done this since these problems were solved by geometric means. Instead I have arbitrarily chosen to begin with Fermat's elegant principle of least time. He used this principle in 1662 to show how a light ray was refracted at the interface between two optical media of different densities. This analysis of Fermat seems to me especially appropriate as a starting point: He used the methods of the calculus to minimize the time of passage cif a light ray through the two media, and his method was adapted by John Bernoulli to solve the brachystochrone problem. There have been several other histories of the subject, but they are now hopelessly archaic. One by Robert Woodhouse appeared in 1810 and another by Isaac Todhunter in 1861.