From Landau & Lifshitz The Classical Theory Of Fields it is said:
To determine the action integral for a free material particle (a particle not under the influence of any external force), we note that this integral must not depend on our choice of reference system, that is, it must be invariant under Lorentz transformations.
This seems understandable. But in comments on this answer Ján Lalinský says that "there is no good physical reason why action should be invariant". Further he suggests another Lagrangian than that given in L&L, namely, if we denote L&L Lagrangian as $L_0$, then the example could be $L_0+Cv_x$, which is clearly anisotropic. Clearly, the equations of motion must not change with this Lagrangian, because $Cv_x$ is a total time derivative (of $Cx$).
On the other hand, in this answer Luboš Motl says that "the invariance of the action follows from special relativity – and special relativity is right (not only) because it is experimentally verified. [snip] If $S$ depended on the inertial system, so would the terms in the equations $\delta S=0$, and these laws of motion couldn't be Lorentz-covariant".
How could I connect L&L and Luboš's arguments with Ján's example? Can both sides be simultaneously right? They seem to contradict each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment