Development of the Action Principle

This book describes the historical development of the principle of stationary action from  the 17th to the 20th centuries. Reference is made to the most important contributors to this topic, in particular Bernoullis, Leibniz, Euler, Lagrange and Laplace. The leading theme is how the action principle is applied to problems in classical physics such as hydrodynamics, electrodynamics and gravity, ext...