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Heather Whitney

@hbarw.bsky.social

0 Posts435 Follower 16 Folgt

Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · last yr.

Anyway, I guess you could say that Hamilton was... [puts on sunglasses] ...not throwing away his dot. [steps on rake and hits self in face] (16/16)

Hamilton's equations for the time evolution of a generic momentum p and position q for some degree of freedom of a mechanical system. The first equation reads "p dot is equal to minus the derivative of the Hamiltonian with respect to q", while the second equation reads "q dot is equal to the derivative of the Hamiltonian with respect to p." In both cases "dot" means the time derivative of the quantity.