# Tag Info

44

Momentum / energy are the conserved Noether charges that correspond, by dint of Noether's Theorem to the invariance of the Lagrangian description of a system with respect to translation. Whenever a physical system's Lagrangian is invariant under a continuous transformation (e.g. shift of spatial / temporal origin, rotation of co-ordinates), there must be a ...

10

As the wiki article you quote states, momentum is defined as the product of the velocity times the mass of an object. Classical mechanics developed theoretically on the lines explained by WetSavanna in the other answer, the conservation of momentum and energy being cornerstones of the theory. Classical mechanics is a very successful theory, and ...

7

Without touching on electromagnetism, I'd like to bring up this construction from mechanics (it's in the Feynman lectures). Consider two equal particles approaching each other with equal speed. A----> <----B You can argue from first principles that if they stick together they will not be moving afterwards -- any argument you could make ...

3

Comments to the question (v3): OP is essentially asking about the Lagrangian field-theoretic formulation of a relativistic fluid in an external electromagnetic background $A_{\mu}$. Fluid dynamics have both a Lagrangian and an Eulerian picture. (Note that the word Lagrangian is used in two different meanings.) In the relativistic context, there is also ...

1

In general, $\frac{\partial L}{\partial \dot{q}}$ is the canonical (or generalized or conjugate*) momentum, and $m\dot x$, for $x$ the actual position, is kinetic momentum. Likewise, the cross product of the former with the generalized coordinate vector $q$ might be called "canonical angular momentum", and the cross product of the latter "kinetic angular ...

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