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### In the Principle of Least Action, how does a particle know where it will be in the future?

In his book on Classical Mechanics, Prof. Feynman asserts that it just does. But if this is really what happens (& if the Principle of Least Action is more fundamental than Newton's Laws), then ...
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### How does Hamilton's Principle give us the path taken?

We defined the action as: $$\mathcal{S}(t)=\int_{t_1}^{t_2}\mathcal{L}(q_i,\dot{q_i},t) dt$$ where $q_i(t_1)$ and $q_i(t_2)$ are known and fixed. Hamilton's principle states that the path that is ...
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### Principle of least action and greedy algorithm

Is the principle of least action sort of a greedy algorithm that all mechanical systems follow?, sometimes to minimise and sometimes to maximise the quantity we call action, at each individual step.
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### Lagrangian mechanics and initial conditions vs boundary conditions

It bothers me that many basic books on the classical mechanics don't discuss the following difference between "Newton's laws" and the "Principle of stationary action". Newton's laws can predict the ...
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### If the path integral formulation includes future events, why doesn't that imply retrocausality?

I know that such events would cancel out in the math, but if an extreme event were to happen in the future (say a black hole forming or something on that par), would a particle in the present react to ...
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### Hamilton-Jacobi theory and initial value problem?

Having read through some recent posts regarding the Lagrangian formulation being interpreted into an initial value problem rather than the familiar boundary condition problem we are familiar with, I ...
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### Initial in time conditions and Lagrangian approach in classical mechanics

When we derive Euler-Lagrange equations in classical mechanics following the Lagrangian approach we introduce Boundary conditions at the starting- and end-points of the path in the configuration space....
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### “Principle of least action” and “Principle of conservation of energy”: Which one is fundamental and which one is derived? [closed]

Suppose I throw a ball upwards. First it will rise under gravity and then fall under gravity. During the rising part the kinetic energy gradually decreases and the potential energy increases until ...
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### Maximum aging and path of rock

When a rock falls from a ledge, why does it head to the surface and not up to where time runs faster? If a rock, free from forces, follows a worldline of maximum aging, why would that rock approach ...
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### In Fermat's Principle of Least Time, how do we know that light is able to reach the end point? [duplicate]

From my understanding of Fermat's Principle, you decide a start point and an end point for a light ray to travel between, and the light 'chooses' whichever path takes the least time (or technically ...
I am citing from Landau and Lifschitz, this statement that will seem to you well-known, trivial, etc: "Between these positions, (i.e. $q_1$ and $q_2$) the system moves then in such a way that the ...