History of variational principles in physics involves integrals over an interval of time and (for fields) extended region of space. Moreover, in the usual formulation of classical action principles, the initial and final states of the system are fixed, e.g., In particular, the fixing of the "final" state appears to give the action principle a teleological character which has been controversial historically. This apparent teleology is eliminated in the quantum mechanical version of the action principle. History of variational principles in physics A variational principle in physics is an alternative method for determining the state or dynamics of a physical system, by identifying it as an
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences that much of what we see comes from the glasses we put on. Eddington went so far as to claim that a sufficiently wise mind could deduce all of physics, illustrating his point with the following joke: "Some men went fishing in the sea with a net, and upon examining what they caught they concluded that there was a minimum size to the fish in the sea." Hamming gives four examples of nontrivial physical phenomena he believes arose from the mathematical tools employed and not from the intrinsic properties of physical reality. 2. "Humans create and select the mathematics that