Abstract
IN your issue of January 29, Mr. Heaviside put forward a demonstration of Lagrange's equations of motion which appears invalid. As neither his interpretation of Newton nor his argument based thereon was stated with sufficient clearness to enable a critic to locate the weak spot without running serious risk of misinterpreting him, it seemed better in the first instance to point out a well-known case in which precisely similar reasoning would lead to Lagrange's equations of motion where they are known to be untrue (the reason, and a proper remedy, being also generally known). This I did in your number of February 19; his reply, in the same number, is to the effect that he does not intend to uphold the truth of Lagrange's equations in such a case. It is not, however, logically permissible for anyone to escape the inconvenient consequences of his own argument in such a fashion.
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ORR, W. Proof of Lagrange's Equations of Motion, &c. . Nature 67, 415 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/067415a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/067415a0
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