In this lesson, we first begin by going over the underlying goal of what calculus of variations is all about as well as some of the basic concepts. The central concept in this lesson is the notion of a functional.

Lesson Objectives:

• Understand what calculus of variations aims to describe and why it's important for physics
• Understand the concept of a functional and why we represent them using definite integrals
  

The material for this lesson can be found here (download link is found below):

After reading through the lesson, you can complete the quiz below and then move on to the next lesson. The problems in the Calculus of Variations Workbook are recommended to be done only after the third lesson.