this is easy,
This is called the Euler-Lagrange equations (plural) because this is actually several equations. Each different variable (x1=x, x2=y, x3=z) tells you something different. In regular ol’ calculus, if you want to find the value of x that extremizes a function f(x), you solve
for the value x. Using the Euler-Lagrange equations is philosophically similar: to find the path that extremizes S, you solve
for the path
.
The Lagrangian from earlier, for a free-falling object near the surface of the Earth, is:
For z:
So the E-L equation says:
or
In other words, “everything accelerates downward at the same rate”. Doing the same thing for x or y, you get
, which says “things don’t accelerate sideways”. Both good things to know.
You wanna be even slicker, note that this Lagrangian is independent of time. That means that
. Therefore, applying the chain rule:
But we have the E-L equations! Plugging those in:
And therefore:
This thing in the parentheses is constant (since it never changes in time). In the case of
we find that this constant thing is: