Page:A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism - Volume 2.djvu/216

 CHAPTER V. ON THE EQUATIONS OF MOTION OF A CONNECTED SYSTEM.

553.] the fourth section of the second part of his Mécanique Analytique, Lagrange has given a method of reducing the ordinary dynamical equations of the motion of the parts of a connected system to a number equal to that of the degrees of freedom of the system.

The equations of motion of a connected system have been given in a different form by Hamilton, and have led to a great extension of the higher part of pure dynamics.

As we shall find it necessary, in our endeavours to bring electrical phenomena within the province of dynamics, to have our dynamical ideas in a state fit for direct application to physical questions, we shall devote this chapter to an exposition of these dynamical ideas from a physical point of view.

554.] The aim of Lagrange was to bring dynamics under the power of the calculus. He began by expressing the elementary dynamical relations in terms of the corresponding relations of pure algebraical quantities, and from the equations thus obtained he deduced his final equations by a purely algebraical process. Certain quantities (expressing the reactions between the parts of the system called into play by its physical connexions) appear in the equations of motion of the component parts of the system, and Lagrange's investigation, as seen from a mathematical point of view, is a method of eliminating these quantities from the final equations.

In following the steps of this elimination the mind is exercised in calculation, and should therefore be kept free from the intrusion of dynamical ideas. Our aim, on the other hand, is to cultivate