A dialectical view of the variational principles of mechanics

Qiuping A. Wang (1)

1 ISMANS CESI - Institut Supérieur des Mécaniques et Matériaux Avancés

The aim of this work is to provide a possible philosophical motivation to the variational principles of physics in general and a possible way to unify the axiomatizations of mechanics theories. The leitmotif of this work is a dialectical view of the world: any smooth motion in nature is the consequence of the interplay and dynamical balance between pairs of opposite elements of the motion. We stress that the opposite property here differs from the common sense of opposing elements (of conflicting appearance but of same nature) such action/reaction forces between two bodies. The opposite elements here are incompatible and mutual exclusive in nature, with contrasting and complementary characteristics such as active/passive, disorder/order, curvature/flatness, etc. The dynamical balance is defined by an invariant variational relationship between all the pairs of opposite elements active in the considered motion. From this idea, an axiomatization of quantum mechanics is proposed in addition to the derivation of several existing variational principles of mechanics.

Domaines: Histoire de la Physique [physics.hist-ph]; Mécanique statistique [cond-mat.stat-mech]

Qiuping A. Wang. A dialectical view of the variational principles of mechanics. 2008. ⟨hal-00310437v2⟩