Date of Award:

5-1992

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Mathematics and Statistics

Department name when degree awarded

Mathematics

Committee Chair(s)

Ian M. Anderson

Committee

Ian M. Anderson

Committee

Renate Schaaf

Committee

Charles Torre

Abstract

The HELMHOLTZ package, written in Maple V, is a collection of commands to support research in the variational calculus. These commands include the standard operators on differential forms, Euler-Lagrange operators, homotopy operators, Lie bracket, Lie derivatives, and the prolongation of a vector field. We give a brief introduction to the variational calculus. We describe each of the commands in the HELMHOLTZ package completely along with numerous examples of each. Applications of the package include verification of symmetry groups for differential equations, solving the inverse problem of the calculus of variations, computing generalized symmetries, and finding variational integrating factors. A complete listing of the Maple code for HELMHOLTZ is found in an appendix.

Checksum

d40b081f932a113c4497ee7376b0aa3c

Included in

Mathematics Commons

Share

COinS