A formulation developed by this physicist inspired the phase space formulation of quantum mechanics. For 10 points each:
[10m] Name this physicist whose principal function, S, is the action. This physicist’s formulation of classical mechanics is expressed in terms of generalized momenta.
ANSWER: William Rowan Hamilton [accept Hamilton’s principal function; accept Hamiltonian mechanics]
[10e] The negative derivative of Hamilton’s principal function with respect to this quantity gives the Hamiltonian. The derivative of position with respect to this quantity gives velocity.
ANSWER: time
[10h] For a system of N particles, this number times N gives the dimensionality of Hamiltonian phase space. This number is the number of independent components of the Cauchy (“ko-SHEE”) stress tensor.
ANSWER: six
<GC, Physics>