scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1148275

Publication date 4 May 1998

As the author states in the introduction, a part of this book has been taught at the famous ``l'École Polytechnique in Paris (France) and indeed, it has the contents, the structure and particularly the ``look of an (advanced) lecture course on what may be called `applications of calculus of variations to theoretical mechanics and physics'. Each of the 7 chapters of the book ends with a large number of exercises and each of the chapters 1, 2, 4 and 6 has also a short account of the main concepts and results; moreover, the most important relations and formulae are nicely displayed and underlined throughout the book. From this point of view, the book seems to be an illustrate example of how the modern electronic facilities may be used to create nice-looking and possibly efficient textbooks and manuals. Chapters 1, 2, 4 and 6 contain a rather informal exposition of most classical results in calculus of variations starting with the derivation of Euler-Lagrange equation for smooth extremals (Ch. 1), then extending it to piecewise smooth extremals (Ch. 2), and continuing with the Hamilton-Jacobi method, the theory of fields of extremals and the Weierstrass, Legendre and Jacobi necessary and, respectively, sufficient optimality conditions (Ch. 4, 6). All these results are presented from the viewpoint of mechanics and physics (the functional to be minimized is called action, etc.), use specific notations and are accompanied by examples from these fields. Chapters 3, 5, 7 (and a good part of the others) are dedicated to analytical mechanics (Ch. 3), Maupertuis' principle (Ch. 5) and the formulation of principles of physics (Ch. 7). The reader with a traditional education in theoretical mechanics may be content with the abundance of classical examples in the field ranging from the celebrated brachistochrone and the soap bubble problem (this is discussed in several places on pp. 39, 51, 71, 84, 215, without mentioning the name of Plateau) to geometrical optics, dynamics of the rigid body, electromagnetic fields, general and special relativity, etc. On the other hand, the theoretically oriented mathematician may be disapointed not only by the rather casual treatment of most theoretical problems but also by the absence of references pointing at places where a more complete and rigorous treatment may be found; for instance, one could indicate theorem 22(i) and pp. 42-80 in [\textit{L. Cesari}, ``Optimization -- theory and applications (1983; Zbl 0506.49001)] for the statement and, respectively, the proof of necessary conditions in their full generality, as well as the 43 pages solution of Plateau's problem for surfaces of revolution in [\textit{G. A. Bliss}, ``Calculus of variations (1925; JFM 51.0372.01)] etc.

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