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T H E P R I N C I P L E O F L E A S T AC T I O N
History and Physics
The principle of least action originates in the idea that Nature has a purpose and
thus should follow a minimum or critical path. This basic principle, with its variants
and generalizations, applies to optics, mechanics, electromagnetism, relativity and
quantum mechanics, and provides a guide to understanding the beauty of physics.
This text provides an accessible introduction to the action principle across these
various fields of physics and examines its history and fundamental role in science.
It includes explanations from historical sources, discussions of classic papers, and
original worked examples.
Different sections require different levels of mathematical sophistication. How-
ever, the main story line is accessible not only to researchers and students in physics
and the history of physics, but also to those with a more modest mathematical
background.
A L B E R T O R O J O is an Associate Professor at Oakland University. He is a Ful-
bright Specialist in Physics Education and he was awarded the Jack Williams
Endowed Chair in Science and Humanities from the University of Eastern New
Mexico. His research focuses primarily on theoretical condensed matter, and he
has previously published popular science books.
ANTHONY BLOCH is the Alexander Ziwet Collegiate Professor of Mathematics

at the University of Michigan where he is the Department Chair. He has served on
the editorial boards of various journals, he is a Fellow of several professional soci-
eties, and he has received a Presidential Young Investigator Award, a Guggenheim
Fellowship and a Simons Fellowship.
THE P R I NC I P L E OF L E AST ACT ION
History and Physics
A L B E RTO RO J O
Oakland University, Michigan
ANTHONY BLOCH
University of Michigan
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
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Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521869027
DOI: 10.1017/9781139021029

c Alberto Rojo and Anthony Bloch 2018
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2018
Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Rojo, Alberto G., author. | Bloch, Anthony, author.
Title: The principle of least action : history and physics / Alberto Rojo
(Oakland University, Michigan), Anthony Bloch (University of Michigan).
Description: Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY :
Cambridge University Press, 2018.
| Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017023575| ISBN 9780521869027 (hardback ; alk. paper) |
ISBN 0521869021 (hardback ; alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Least action. | Variational principles. | Mechanics. |
Lagrange equations. | Hamilton-Jacobi equations.
Classification: LCC QA871 .R65 2017 | DDC 530.1–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017023575
ISBN 978-0-521-86902-7 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy
of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
Contents
List of Illustrations page ix

Acknowledgments xii
1 Introduction 1
2 Prehistory of Variational Principles 6

2.1 Queen Dido and the Isoperimetric Problem 6
2.1.1 Zenodorus’s Solution* 7
2.2 Hero of Alexandria and the Law of Reflection 13
2.3 Galileo and the Curve of Swiftest Descent 14
2.4 Bending of Light Rays and Fermat’s Minimum Principle 18
2.4.1 Fermat’s Method of Maxima and Minima 21
2.4.2 Huygens’ Simplified Derivation of Snell’s Law 24
2.5 Newton and the Solid of Least Resistance* 27
2.5.1 The Sphere and the Cylinder 28
2.5.2 An Application “in the Building of Ships” 30
2.5.3 The First Genuine Variational Calculation 34
3 An Excursion to Newton’s Principia 38

3.1 Newton’s Propositions on the Laws of Motion 38
3.2 Geometrical Derivation of Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion 39
3.2.1 Proposition 1: Equal Areas are Swept Out in Equal Times 39
3.2.2 Proposition 6: The Force Law and the Geometry of the Orbit* 41
3.2.3 Circular Orbits 43
3.2.4 Proposition 10: Elliptical Orbit with the Center of Force
at the Center of the Ellipse 45
3.2.5 Proposition 11: Center of Force at the Focus of the Ellipse* 48
4 The Optical-Mechanical Analogy, Part I 51

4.1 Bernoulli’s Challenge and the Brachistochrone 51
4.1.1 Huygens and the Horologium Oscillatorium 52
v
vi Contents
4.1.2 Leibniz’s Solution of the Brachistochrone 55

4.1.3 Bernoulli’s Solution: Particle Paths as Light Rays 57
4.2 Maupertuis, Least Action, and Metaphysical Mechanics 59
4.3 Euler and the Method of Maxima and Minima* 62
4.3.1 Euler’s Derivation of Orbits from the Least Action Principle 65
4.4 Examples of the Optical-Mechanical Analogy 68
4.4.1 Conservation of “Angular Momentum” for Light Rays 69
4.4.2 The Terrestrial Brachistochrone 71
4.5 The String Analogy and the Principle of Least Action 72
4.5.1 The Least Action Principle and Stretchable Strings 75
5 D’Alembert, Lagrange, and the Statics-Dynamics Analogy 79

5.1 The Principle of Virtual Work 79
5.2 Statics Meets Dynamics: Bernoulli’s Calculation of the Center
of Oscillation 82
5.3 D’Alembert’s Principle 85
5.4 Lagrange’s Dynamics 90
5.4.1 Lagrange’s “Scientific Poem” 93
5.4.2 Symmetries 96
5.5 Lagrange versus d’Alembert: Dissipative and Nonholonomic
Systems 100
5.5.1 Dissipation in a Reversible System: Lamb’s Model 101
5.5.2 Nonholonomic Systems 103
5.6 Gauss’s Principle of Least Constraint 105
5.7 Least Action with a Twist: the Elasticity of the Ether and
Maxwell’s Equations* 107
6 The Optical-Mechanical Analogy, Part II: The Hamilton-Jacobi

Equation 112
6.1 Hamilton’s “Theory of Systems of Rays” 112
6.2 Conical Refraction* 119
6.2.1 Fresnel’s Equations for Anisotropic Crystals 119
6.2.2 Analytical Derivation of the Wave Surface 122
6.2.3 Hamilton’s Derivation of the Conical Cusp 124
6.2.4 Internal Conical Refraction: “The Plum Laid Down on a
Table” 125
6.3 Hamilton’s Law of Varying Action* 128
6.4 An Example from Hamilton: The Characteristic Function
V for a Parabolic Orbit* 131
6.5 Hamilton’s “Second Essay on a General Method in Dynamics”* 134
Contents vii
6.5.1 Example: Particle in a Uniform Gravitational Field 140

6.6 Hamilton-Jacobi and Huygens’ Principle* 142
6.7 Applications and Examples 143
6.7.1 The Equation of a Light Ray 143
6.7.2 Hamiltonian of the Harmonic Oscillator 145
6.7.3 Hamilton-Jacobi Equation for a Particle in a Magnetic Field 146
6.8 When the Principle of Least Action Loses its “Least” 149
6.8.1 Focus and Kinetic Focus 149
6.8.2 Kinetic Focus for a Free Particle on a Sphere 151
6.8.3 Saddle Paths for the Harmonic Oscillator 152
6.8.4 Kinetic Focus of Elliptic Planetary Orbits 154
6.8.5 Gouy’s Phase and Critical Action 155
6.8.6 Caustics 158
7 Relativity and Least Action 162

7.1 Simultaneity and the Relativity of Time 163
7.2 The Relativistic “F = ma” 166
7.2.1 The Energy-Momentum Four-Vector 169
7.2.2 Invariance of the Relativistic Action 171
7.3 Hamilton-Jacobi Equation for a Relativistic Particle 172
7.4 The Principle of Equivalence 173
7.4.1 Bending of Light Rays According to the Equivalence
Principle 176
7.4.2 Bending of Light Rays, Newtonian Calculation 178
7.5 Space-Time is Curved 180
7.6 Weak Gravity around a Static, Spherical Star 182
7.6.1 Precession of the Perihelion of Mercury 182
7.6.2 Bending of the Light Rays in the General Theory 185
7.7 Hilbert’s Least Action Principle for General Relativity* 186
8 The Road to Quantum Mechanics 189

8.1 The Need for a New Mechanics 189
8.2 Bohr’s “Trilogy” of 1913 and Sommerfeld’s Generalization 192
8.2.1 Sommerfeld and the Kepler Problem 195
8.2.2 The Fine Structure of the Hydrogen Spectrum 198
8.3 Adiabatic Invariants 199
8.4 De Broglie’s Matter Waves 203
8.5 Schrödinger’s Wave Mechanics 205
8.5.1 The Eikonal Equation 206
8.5.2 Schrödinger’s Derivation 207
viii Contents
8.6 Dirac’s Lagrangian View of Quantum Mechanics 209

8.7 Feynman’s Thesis and Path Integrals 211
8.8 Huygens’ Principle in Optics and Quantum Mechanics* 214
8.8.1 First-Order (in Time) Propagator for the Wave Equation 215
8.8.2 Huygens’ Principle and Spherical Wavelets 217
8.8.3 Cancellation of the Backwards Wave 218
Appendix A Newton’s Solid of Least Resistance, Using Calculus 221

Appendix B Original Statement of d’Alembert’s Principle 223
Appendix C Equations of Motion of McCullagh’s Ether 224
Appendix D Characteristic Function for a Parabolic Keplerian Orbit 225
Appendix E Saddle Paths for Reflections on a Mirror 227
Appendix F Kinetic Caustics from Quantum Motion in
One Dimension 229
Appendix G Einstein’s Proof of the Covariance of
Maxwell’s Equations 233
Appendix H Relativistic Four-Vector Potential 235
Appendix I Ehrenfest’s Proof of the Adiabatic Theorem 238
References 241
Index 254
Illustrations
2.1 Adapted from Zenodorus: equiangular polygon page 8

2.2 From Zenodorus: isosceles triangle 8
2.3 Adapted from Zenodorus: equiangular polygon 9
2.4 Adapted from Zenodorus: similar isosceles triangles 9
2.5 From Zenodorus: area of a regular polygon 11
2.6 Adapted from Zenodorus: largest regular octogon 11
2.7 Area of the circle according to Archimedes 12
2.8 A variational problem without a solution 12
2.9 Hero of Alexandria’s original proof of the law of reflection 14
2.10 Galileo’s curve of swiftest descent 15
2.11 Particle falling on an inclined plane 16
2.12 Galileo’s law of chords 17
2.13 Swiftest descent, from Galileo’s Two New Sciences 17
2.14 Descent on a circle, from Galileo’s Two New Sciences 18
2.15 Descartes’ derivation of the law of refraction, reproduced from Descartes
(1637) 19
2.16 Fermat’s method of tangents 22
2.17 From Fermat’s Analyse pour les réfractions 23
2.18 From Huygens’ Treatise on Light 25
2.19 Adapted from Feynman’s Lectures on Physics 26
2.20 From Newton’s Principia, Proposition 34, Book II 29
2.21 Archimedes’ calculation of the volume of a paraboloid 30
2.22 Volume of a paraboloid inscribed on a cylinder 30
2.23 First figure in the scholium to Proposition 34 in Newton’s Principia 31
2.24 Second figure in the scholium to Proposition 34 32
2.25 Adapted from Whiteside (1974) 33
2.26 Newton’s variational method 35
2.27 Newton’s variational calculation II 35
3.1 Equal areas in equal times 39
3.2 From Robert Hooke’s manuscript 41
3.3 Equal areas in equal times for central forces 42
3.4 From Proposition 6 of the Principia 42
ix
x List of Illustrations

3.6 An ellipse is a rescaled circle 45
3.7 The intersecting chord theorem 46
3.8 Scaling proof of the intersecting chord theorem 47
3.10 Reflective property of the ellipse 49
4.1 Adapted from Huygens’ Horologium Oscillatorium 53
4.2 Path independence of the final velocity 53
4.3 Diagram from Huygens’ original work on the isochronous clock 54
4.4 From Leibniz’s solution of the brachistochrone 55
4.5 From the Beilage to Leibniz’s letter to Bernoulli 56
4.6 Light ray in a variable medium 57
4.7 A light ray refracting at horizontal interfaces 58
4.8 Bernoulli’s synchronous curve 59
4.9 Maupertuis’s law of reflection 60
4.10 From Euler, 1744 treatise on maxima and minima 63
4.11 Optical mechanical analogy 69
4.12 Ray in a “central” index of refraction 70
4.13 Terrestrial brachistochrone 72
4.14 Bernoulli’s string analogy of Snell’s law 73
4.15 String analogy for fixed tension 74
4.16 String analogy for variable tension 75
5.1 Galileo’s virtual velocity for an inclined plane 80
5.2 Virtual work according to John Bernoulli 81
5.3 Virtual work and the Fermat-Torricelli problem 82
5.4 Impressed, unchanged, and lost motions 83
5.5 Lost velocities and the center of oscillation 84
5.6 D’Alembert’s principle 87
5.7 Virtual versus real displacements 89
5.8 Infinite chain of oscillators 102
5.9 Lamb’s model 104
5.10 Curl and mean rotation of elastic displacements 108
6.1 Law of reflection for a parabolic mirror 113
6.2 Reflection on a curved mirror 115
6.3 Malus’s theorem for refraction 117
6.4 Variation of Hamilton’s characteristic function 118
6.5 Phase velocity of a birefringent crystal 121
6.6 Normal slowness 122
6.7 Fresnel wave surface 124
6.8 Internal conical refraction 127
6.9 Hamilton’s law of varying action 128
6.10 Eccentric anomaly 132
6.11 Huygens’ construction 143
6.12 Huygens’ construction and Fermat’s principle 144
6.13 Particle in a magnetic field 147
List of Illustrations xi
6.14 Focus and saddle path for a mirror 149

6.15 Jacobi’s example of kinetic focus 150
6.16 Kinetic focus for the harmonic oscillator 152
6.17 Kinetic focus of elliptical orbits 154
6.18 Saddle point and Gouy’s phase 157
6.19 Caustic on a cup of coffee 159
6.20 Caustic for a particle in one dimension 160
7.1 Time dilation 164
7.2 Vertical ray seen from a moving frame 165
7.3 Bending of a light ray grazing a star of radius R 176
7.4 Newtonian bending of a light ray 178
7.5 Radial potential for Schwarzschild’s metric 184
8.1 Stepwise change of the spring constant of a harmonic oscillator 200
8.2 Sudden change of the spring constant of a harmonic oscillator 201
8.3 Adiabatic invariance of the harmonic oscillator 202
8.4 Adiabatic invariance of p d x 203
8.5 Huygens’ construction 214
8.6 Huygens’ construction for spherical wavelets 218
A.1 Meridian of the solid of least resistance, from equations (A.12) 222
E.1 Saddle path for a mirror 227
F.1 Quantum one-dimensional delta function potential 231
I.1 Adiabatic theorem for closed orbits 239
Acknowledgments
We thank Pablo Amster for useful input, Michael V. Berry for very valuable com-
ments on a preliminary version of our manuscript, Danilo Capecchi for answering
our questions on the history of virtual work and d’Alembert’s principle, Olivier
Darrigol for comments on McCullagh’s theory of elasticity, David Garfinkle for
his suggestions on the relativity chapter, Ursula Goldenbaum for her remarks on
Maupertuis’s controversy, William Kentridge for his wonderful cover illustration,
Mario Mariscotti for his feedback, Guillermo Martínez for useful comments and
for his input on the cover, Jeffrey K. McDonough for helpful comments on Leib-
niz, Luis Navarro Veguillas for remarks on the adiabatic principle in quantum
physics, Bernardino Orio de Miguel for sending us his translation from Latin of
the Bernoulli-Leibniz correspondence, Peter Pesic for useful discussions, Roshdi
Rashed for comments on Islamic science, Jeffrey Rauch for discussions on Huy-
gens’ principle, Ignacio Silva for references on Aristotle, and Alejandro Uribe for
his comments on optics and saddle paths.
1
Introduction
The idea of writing a book on the principle of least action came to us after many
conversations over coffee, while we pondered ways of communicating to students
the ideas of mechanics with an historical flavor. We chose the principle of least
action because we think that its importance and aesthetic value as a unifying idea
in physics is not sufficiently emphasized in regular courses. To the general public,
even to those interested in science at a popular level, the beautiful notion that the
fundamental laws of physics can be expressed as the minimum (or an extremum) of
something often seems foreign. Nature loves extremes. Soap films seek to minimize
their surface area, and adopt a spherical shape; a large piece of matter tends to
maximize the gravitational attraction between its parts, and as a result the planets
are also spherical; light rays refracting in a glass window bend and follow the path
of least time; the orbits of the planets are those that minimize something called
the “action;” and the path that a relativistic particle chooses to follow between two
events in space-time is the one that maximizes the time measured by a clock on the
particle.
Our initial intention was to write a popular book, but the project morphed into
a more technical presentation. Nevertheless we have tried to keep sophisticated
mathematics to a minimum: nothing more than freshman calculus is needed for
most of the book, and a good part of the book requires only high school algebra.
Some familiarity with differential equations would be useful in certain sections.
While the different sections have various levels of difficulty, the book does not need
to be read in a linear fashion. It is quite feasible to browse through this book, as
most of the chapters and many of the sections are relatively self-contained. Sections
and subsections that are a bit more technical and that can easily be omitted on a
first reading include 1.1, 2.5, 3.2.2, 3.2.5, 4.3, 5.7, 6.2 to 6.6, 7.7 and 8.8. These
are marked in the text with an asterisk.
The gold standards on the topic of our book are The Variational Principles
of Mechanics by Cornelius Lanczos and Variational Principles in Dynamics and
1
2 Introduction
Quantum Theory by Wolfgang Yourgrau and Stanley Mandelstam. Our book can
be regarded as a supplement to these two masterpieces, with expositions that follow
the historical development of minimum principles, some elementary examples, an
invitation to read the primary sources, and to appreciate science, in the words of
Isidor Isaac Rabi, as a “human endeavor in its historic context, . . . as an intellectual
pursuit rather than as a body of tricks.”
The metaphysical roots of the least action principle are in Aristotle’s statement
from De caelo and Politics: “Nature does nothing in vain.” If there is a purpose in
Nature, she should follow a minimum path. At least that is the notion pursued by
Hero of Alexandria in the first century AD to deduce the law of reflection: light
follows the path that minimizes the travel time. Later, in 1657, Pierre de Fermat
extended this idea to the refraction of light rays. “There is nothing as probable or
apparent,” says Fermat, “as the assumption that Nature always acts by the easiest
means, which is to say either along the shortest lines when time is not a considera-
tion, or in any case by the shortest time.” The Arabic astronomer, Ibn al-Haytham,
also uses the principle of “the simplest way” to explain refraction. Galileo, in pos-
tulating the uniform acceleration of freely falling bodies, in 1638, also echoes
Aristotle: “we have been led by the hand to the investigation of naturally acceler-
ated motion by consideration of the custom and procedure of Nature herself in all
her other works, in the performance of which she habitually employs the first, sim-
plest, and easiest means.” In 1746, Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis postulated
the principle of least action. His proposal, based on metaphysical and religious
views, reflected his adherence to notions of simplicity that had guided Fermat and
Galileo: “Nature, in the production of its effects,” he wrote, “does so always by the
simplest means.” More specifically: “in Nature, the amount of action (la quantité
d’action) necessary for change is the smallest possible. Action is the product of the
mass of a body times its velocity times the distance it moves.” His formulation was
vague, but, in the hands of Leonard Euler, it later became a well-formulated prin-
ciple. Gottfried Leibniz used similar (but not identical) ideas to study refraction of
light. Leibniz’s idea is of a “most determined” path and this reflects “God’s inten-
tions to create the best of all possible worlds.” “This principle of Nature,” he says
in his Tentamen Anagogicum, “is purely architectonic,” and then he adds: “Assume
the case that Nature were obliged in general to construct a triangle and that, for this
purpose, only the perimeter or the sum were given and nothing else; then Nature
would construct an equilateral triangle.”
The formulation of mechanics in terms of minimum principles originates in the
optical mechanical analogy first used by John Bernoulli to solve the “brachis-
tochrone problem:” what path between two fixed points in a vertical plane does
a particle follow in order to minimize the time taken? Bernoulli maps the prob-
lem to that of a light ray refracting in a medium of varying index of refraction,
Introduction 3
where light follows the path of least time. The mapping between mechanics and
optics becomes an isomorphism with Maupertuis’s formulation. The minimization
of action for a particle and the minimization of time for a light ray become the
same mathematical problem provided the index of refraction is identified with the
momentum of the particle: the paths are isomorphic. The principle of least action
then may be viewed as an alternative and equivalent formulation to Newton’s laws
of motion.
In the Age of Enlightenment, Newton’s ideas were extended to incorporate con-
straints in mechanical systems. The key figures are James Bernoulli, Jean le Rond
d’Alembert, and Joseph-Louis Lagrange. The central concept for these develop-
ments is the principle of virtual work, which establishes the conditions of static
equilibrium and its extension to dynamics. The work of Lagrange, starting in 1760,
is of supreme importance. For a constrained system with r degrees of freedom
(for example, a particle constrained to move on the surface of a sphere has r = 2
since at a given position it can move in only two directions), he is able to express
the dynamics in terms of a single function L (the Lagrangian) through r equa-
tions identical in structure. Lagrange’s equations can be derived from a minimum
principle, giving rise to an expanded version of the principle of least action: Mau-
pertuis’s minimum principle gives the path between two points in space for a fixed
value of the energy, while Lagrange’s integral gives the path that takes a given
time t between two fixed points in space. Lagrange’s ideas were extended, start-
ing in the 1820s, by William Rowan Hamilton (and also by Carl Jacobi). Hamilton
and Jacobi put the optical mechanical analogy in a broader conceptual frame: the
end points of paths that emanate from a given origin at t = 0 (each path being a
minimum of the Lagrangian action) create, at a later time t, a “wave-front” that
propagates. This wave-front is a surface that intersects the particle trajectories (just
like a wave-front for light is perpendicular to the light rays) but does not include
interference or diffraction effects peculiar to waves. However, it invites a “natu-
ral” question: if light rays are the small wavelength limit of wave optics, what is
the wave theory of particles whose small wavelength limit gives the particle tra-
jectories? Hamilton did not have an experimental reason to entertain the question
in the mid-nineteenth century, but the answer came in the 1920s with Louis de
Broglie’s and Erwin Schrödinger’s quantum theory of wave mechanics. In 1923
de Broglie wrote: “Dynamics must undergo the same evolution that optics has
undergone when undulations took the place of purely geometrical optics,” and in
1926 Schrödinger considered the “general correspondence which exists between
the Hamilton-Jacobi differential equation and the ‘allied’ wave equation.” In 1942
Richard Feynman established an even deeper connection between least action and
quantum physics: a quantum particle, in propagating between two fixed points in
space and time, does not follow a single path but all possible paths “at the same
4 Introduction
time.” The contribution of each path to the total propagation is the (complex)
exponential of Hamilton’s action.
The fact that many fundamental laws of physics can be expressed in terms of
the least action principle (with the appropriate action) led Max Planck to say that,
“Among the more or less general laws which manifest the achievements of physical
science in the course of the last centuries, the principle of least action is probably
the one which, as regards form and content, may claim to come nearest to that
final ideal goal of theoretical research.” And Arthur Eddington, in 1920, wrote:
“the law of gravitation, the laws of mechanics, and the laws of electromagnetic
fields have all been summed up in a principle of least action. . . . Action is one
of the two terms in pre-relativity physics which survive unmodified in a descrip-
tion of the absolute world. The only other survival is entropy.” Although Einstein
didn’t follow a least action approach in his theories of relativity (special and gen-
eral), Max Planck, in 1907, in the first relativity paper not written by Einstein,
formulated the dynamics of the special theory in terms of the least action principle.
One of the most interesting applications of the least action principle is the deriva-
tion, by David Hilbert, of the field equations of general relativity. Hilbert knew,
from Einstein, that the relativistic theory of gravitation had to involve the curva-
ture of a four-dimensional space-time. Einstein had struggled for eight years and
he had eventually arrived at the solution by analyzing the properties of the field
equations themselves. Hilbert followed the approach of the least action principle,
guessed the “most natural” Lagrangian and, in 1915, derived the field equations
before Einstein.
Our purpose in writing this book is to tell the above stories with some math-
ematical rigor while staying as close as possible to the sources. Chapter 2 visits
some ancient incarnations of minimum principles before moving on to Galileo’s
curve of swiftest descent and Fermat’s precalculus ideas. We also include New-
ton’s calculation of the solid of least resistance, which anticipates the calculus of
variations used in the principle of least action. In chapter 3 we take an excursion
to Newton’s Principia, even though this work is not directly related to variational
principles. We do so for two reasons: the monumental importance of this work on
mechanics, and the fact that Newton’s ideas are crucial in the development of the
principle of least action. Chapter 4 tells the story of the optical mechanical analogy
and the true beginnings of variational principles. In chapter 5 we visit the principle
of virtual work and Lagrange’s equations. Here we point out that the principle of
least action fails to give the dynamics of nonholonomic systems, where the con-
straints are expressed in terms of the possible motions rather than in terms of the
possible configurations. Chapter 5 and the ones that follow require familiarity with
calculus. In writing chapter 6, we decided to follow Hamilton’s crucial papers as
closely as possible, making some sections of this chapter perhaps less accessible
Introduction 5
than the material found in previous chapters. We included a discussion on kinetic

foci, which emphasizes the fact that the principle of least action should perhaps be
called the principle of extremal (or critical) action since action is not always least.
For classical (non-quantum) systems, the action is an extremum that can never be
a maximum; that leaves us with a minimum or a saddle point, and both are possi-
ble. Chapter 7 is an overview of relativity in connection with least action. Finally,
in Chapter 8 we narrate the development of quantum theory and, in particular, we
trace its connection with the optical mechanical analogy and the principle of least
action.
2
Prehistory of Variational Principles
2.1 Queen Dido and the Isoperimetric Problem

Consider a loop of thread lying on a table. How can we distort the loop, without
stretching the thread, so that it encloses the maximum area?
The problem appears in a story told by the Roman poet, Virgil, in his epic poem,
The Aeneid (Virgil, 19 BC):
They sailed to the place where today you’ll see

Stone walls going higher and the citadel
Of Carthage, the new town. They bought the land,
Called Drumskin [Byrsa] from the bargain made, a tract
They could enclose with one bull’s hide.
These verses refer to the legend of Queen Dido who fled her home because her
brother, Pygmalion, had killed her husband and was plotting to steal all her money.
She ended up on the north coast of Africa, where she was given permission to rule
over whatever area of land she was able to enclose using the hide of only one bull.
She cut the hide into thin strips, tying them together to form the longest loop she
could make, in order to enclose the largest possible kingdom. Queen Dido seems to
have discovered how to use this loop to maximize the area of her kingdom: using
straight coastline as her side border, she enclosed the largest area of land possible
by placing the loop in the shape of a semi-circle.
Queen Dido’s story is now the emblem of the so-called isoperimetric problem:
for a fixed perimeter, determine the shape of the closed, planar curve that encloses
the maximum area. The answer is the circle. Aristotle, in De caelo, while dis-
cussing the motion of the heavens, displays some knowledge or intuition of this
result (Aristotle, 350 BC/1922, Book II):
Again, if the motion of the heavens is the measure of all movement . . . and the minimum
movement is the swiftest, then, clearly, the movement of the heavens must be the swiftest
of all movements. Now of the lines which return upon themselves the line which bounds
the circle is the shortest; and that movement is the swiftest which follows the shortest line.
6
However, a common assumption in ancient times was that the area of a figure is
determined entirely by its perimeter (Gandz, 1940). For example, Thucydides, the
great ancient historian, estimated the size of Sicily from its circumnavigation time
which is proportional to the perimeter (Thucydides, 431 BC, Book VI):
For the voyage round Sicily in a merchantman is not far short of eight days; and yet, large
as the island is, there are only two miles of sea to prevent its being mainland.
The confusion persisted even up to the times of Galileo, who expresses the
problem in Sagredo’s voice (Galilei, 1638/1974, p. 61):
people who lack knowledge of geometry . . . make the error when speaking of surfaces; for
in determining the size of different cities, they often imagine that everything is known when
the lengths [quantità] of the city boundaries are given, not knowing that one boundary
might be equal to another, while the area contained by one be much greater than that in the
other.
The isoperimetric problem was solved by the Greek mathematician Zenodorus

(ca. 200 BC– ca. 140 BC). Although his work has been lost, we know of his proof
through Pappus and Theon of Alexandria (Pappus, 1888; Heath, 1921). Zenodorus
starts by shaping Queen Dido’s loop into straight lines of different lengths to form
an arbitrary irregular polygon. And then he shows that one can increase the area
enclosed by that polygon by changing the lengths of the sides – without altering its
perimeter or the number of sides – until they are all the same. In other words, he
shows that, of all polygons of a given perimeter and a given number of sides, the
equilateral polygon encloses the largest area. However, even if we fix the perimeter
and the number of sides, there are still an infinite number of possible equilateral
polygons. Zenodorus shows that, from this infinite set of equilaterals, the equian-
gular one encloses the largest area. And for the final piece of the proof: if we start
with a regular polygon and increase its number of sides (keeping the perimeter
fixed), the new polygon encloses a larger area. And this leads us naturally to the
circle, which we can think of as a regular polygon with an infinite number of sides.
The reader who is not interested in the details of Zenodorus’s proof can skip the
next section without loss of continuity.
2.1.1 Zenodorus’s Solution*

Zenodorus showed that a non-equilateral polygon can be manipulated to enclose
a larger area without changing its perimeter. Pick a triangle of the irregular poly-
gon – the shaded triangle of Figure 2.1. Keeping the base AB fixed, reshape the
triangle into an isosceles triangle of the same perimeter by moving the vertex from
8 Prehistory of Variational Principles
D C
A B
Figure 2.1 Adapted from Zenodorus. The equilateral polygon encloses a larger
area than any irregular polygon with the same perimeter and the same number of
sides.
b)
+
2 (a
1
D
E
b)
C
+
b
2 (a
1
A B
Figure 2.2 From Zenodorus. Among the triangles on a fixed base AB and fixed
perimeter AB + a + b, the isosceles triangle AD B has the largest area. Triangle
AD B, whose legs have length (a + b)/2, has the same perimeter as the starting
(scalene) triangle AC B. Prolong AC to F so that AD = D F. The dashed line
D E, parallel to AB, is a “line of symmetry:” the segment D B is the reflection
of D F on the “mirror” D E, and all points below the line D E are closer to B
than to F. Now consider the triangle AC F and use the “triangular inequality”
(in any triangle the sum of any two sides is greater than the remaining side):
C F + a > a + b and the segment C F > b. Point C is therefore below C E; the
height of the triangle AC B is therefore smaller than the height of AD B. Since
both triangles have the same base, AD B has larger area.
C to D. Zenodorus shows that this reshaping increases the area. The specifics of the
proof (see Figure 2.2) draw from the repertoire of “conjuring tricks” of the Greek
geometers – the choreography of auxiliary lines and symmetric angles that reveal
sometimes unexpected and paradoxical relations. The process can be repeated for
all triangles of consecutive vertices of the polygon, allowing one to conclude that
the polygon enclosing the largest area is equilateral.
The second step is to show that the maximum polygon is also equiangular. This
Zenodorus proves by considering two consecutive triangles from the polygon (see
Figure 2.3). Zenodorus proves that, given two non-similar isosceles triangles, if we
construct, on the same bases, two similar triangles with the same total perimeter as
the first two triangles, then the sum of the areas of the similar triangles is greater
Figure 2.3 Adapted from Zenodorus. The area of a polygon can be increased by
making it equiangular.
D
B
a D a h2
a a
h1
h2
A b1 C b2 E
a h1
a
B̄ h1
B̄ b 1 + b2
Figure 2.4 Adapted from Zenodorus. The sum of the areas of two isosceles trian-
gles with different bases AC = 2b1 and C E = 2b2 , but otherwise equal sides a,
is smaller than the sum of the areas of two similar triangles with the same bases
and equal total perimeter.
than the sum of the areas of the non-similar triangles. According to the account
by Heath (1921), Zenodorus’s proof is restricted. But we can show that a slight
modification makes it valid in general.
Let us start with the non-similar isosceles triangles ABC and C D E (see Fig-
ure 2.4). Their bases are AC = 2b1 and C E = 2b2 respectively, their heights are
h 1 and h 2 , and all the legs are of length a. Following Zenodorus’s logic, construct
the triangle A B̄C, which is the “mirror” image of triangle ABC, the mirror being
along the line of the common bases.
Now construct the two similar triangles A B̄ C and C D̄ E with new heights h 1
and h 2 , keeping the total perimeter the same:
B D = 2a. (2.1)
Since the original triangles are not similar, the line B̄ D joining their vertices is
shorter than 2a.1
B̄ D < 2a. (2.2)
1 This is due to the triangular inequality; the side B̄ D is smaller than the sum of BC and C D.
Using the Pythagorean theorem

( B̄ D )2 = (b1 + b2 )2 + (h 1 + h 2 )2
> ( B̄ D)2
= (b1 + b2 )2 + (h 1 + h 2 )2 , (2.3)
and
(h 1 + h 2 ) > (h 1 + h 2 ). (2.4)
This relation between the final and the initial heights is general and was obtained

by Zenodorus. All we need for equation (2.4) to be valid is that B D > B D, and
this inequality holds even for isosceles triangles of unequal legs (BC = C D).
In a slight deviation from the proof reproduced by Heath, consider the total
change in area for the triangles,
A = b1 (h 1 − h 1 ) + b2 (h 2 − h 2 ). (2.5)
Now take the larger of the bases (b1 in our case) and replace it by the smaller one
in equation (2.5) to obtain
A > b2 (h 1 − h 1 ) + b2 (h 2 − h 2 )
= b2 (h 1 + h 2 − h 1 − h 2 )
> 0. (2.6)
The sum of the areas of two isosceles triangles is always increased if they are
made similar (keeping the sum of the perimeters and the bases fixed): the shaded
“hollow-angled (figure)” (κoιλoγ ώνιoν) A B̄ C B̄ is larger than the figure C D E D .
This does not mean that the maximum possible area is attained by making them
similar.2 All we have shown is that the area increases. Zenodorus proved that the
largest polygon of a given number of sides is regular. The underlying argument
used here is “one of a mathematician’s finest weapons” (Hardy, 1967, p. 94), reduc-
tio ad absurdum, where an assertion is established by deriving an absurdity from
its denial. We first assume that there exists a polygon of maximum area, but we
find a way to make it even larger (by making it equilateral). We then assume that,
from the set of equilateral polygons, we choose the one of maximum area. But we
then show that making it equiangular makes it larger still. Thus we show that the
only equilateral that cannot be further enlarged is the equiangular one. The proof
“shuts all doors one after another, and leaves open only one, through which merely
for that reason we must now pass” (Schopenhauer, 1969, p. 70). There is one more
door to shut before we get to the circle: the proof that the area of a regular polygon
is increased if we increase the number of sides (always for fixed perimeter).
2 The maximum area, as can be proven using elementary calculus and also by a geometric method due to
Steiner, is attained when sin ∠BC A/ sin ∠DC E = b1 /b2 .
=
h
h
Perimeter
Figure 2.5 The area of a regular polygon of n sides (n = 5 in this case) is one half
the perimeter times the apothem h (the height of each of the n identical triangles
making the polygon).
B α
O b β
O D
a
α β O A
A B C D
Figure 2.6 Adapted from Zenodorus.
A regular polygon of n sides can be decomposed into n equal isosceles triangles

(see Figure 2.5). The total area of the polygon is one half the perimeter times the
height h of each triangle (the apothem of the polygon). If we increase the number
of sides of the polygon from n to m, the angle is decreased by the ratio n/m and,
since the perimeter is constant, the base of each triangle is shortened by the same
ratio. Zenodorus shows that the height of the triangles of the new “m-gon” is larger
than the height of the triangles of the n-gon. In Figure 2.6 a hexagon (n = 6) is
changed into an octagon (m = 8). The ratio of the (half) angles of the vertices
is β/α = 6/8. Draw the arc of a circle of radius O D where D intersects the
base AB. The areas of the circular sectors are: (Sector Oa D ) = O D × β and
(Sector Oab) = O D × α; their ratio is also n/m = 6/8. What Zenodorus shows
is that the ratio AB/AD > m/n. In other words, if we keep the height constant,
the perimeter will decrease: in order to keep the perimeter constant, the height has
to increase; and therefore the area will increase. Zenodorus compares the areas of
the triangles O AD and O D B with their corresponding sectors. From Figure 2.5,
O A × (AB − AD )/2 > O D × (α − β) (2.7a)

O D × β > O A × AD /2. (2.7b)
Multiplying the inequalities of equations (2.7), we obtain Zenodorus’s result:

AB α m
> = . (2.8)
AD β n
The largest regular polygon of a given perimeter is the one with an infinite num-
ber of sides: the circle. And the area of that circle, as shown by Archimedes (see
Figure 2.7), is one half the area of the rectangle having the perimeter and radius of
the circle as its length and width respectively.
Zenodorus’s solution, as well as a very elegant proof from Steiner (1842), are
vulnerable to a subtle but important flaw: the shape of maximum area for a given
perimeter is assumed to exist (without proof). The fact that from a given n-gon we
can construct a new one enclosing a larger area, does not guarantee that the area-
maximizing n-gon exists. As pointed out later by Weierstrass (1927), we could be
finding an upper bound and not the actual solution. Consider, for example (Blan-
chard and Brüning, 1982), the problem of finding the shortest curve C joining
points A and B with the restriction that C is perpendicular to the straight line AB
at both A and B (see Figure 2.8). If we call a the length of the straight line AB, we
can construct a curve connecting A and B that satisfies the constraint, consisting
of two arcs of a circle of radius plus a straight line. For each of these curves we
can find a smaller that shortens the length, but the limiting straight line of length
a is never reached.
It turns out that for n-gons, the proof that one of maximum area exists is rel-
atively simple (Blåsjö, 2005; Courant and Robbins, 1996), since the area and the
perimeter are continuous functions of the 2n coordinates of its vertices, which can
be restricted to a “compact” set of points in a 2n-dimensional space. For example,
each point can be thought of as being inside a square. Weierstrass showed that a
continuous function (the area in our case) on a closed and bounded interval is itself
bounded and attains its bounds. Zenodorus gave a beautiful proof but missed the
delicate proof of existence, and so Weierstrass usually gets the credit.
Figure 2.7 Archimedes’ proof that the area of a circle is half that of the rectangle
having the perimeter and radius of the circle as its length and width respec-
tively. A regular polygon with an infinite number of sides (of which we show
an approximation, with 15 sides) is a circle.

A B
Figure 2.8 A variational problem without a solution.

2.2 Hero of Alexandria and the Law of Reflection 13
2.2 Hero of Alexandria and the Law of Reflection

The first formulation of a minimum principle in a physical problem comes from
Hero of Alexandria (ca. 10 AD – ca. 70 AD). In his Catoptrics, Hero presents a
proof that the law of reflection for light rays on a flat mirror follows from the
minimization of travel time (Heronis, 1976). His starting point is:
what moves with constant velocity follows a straight line. An example is an arrow which
we see shot from the bow. For, because of the forward moving force the moving body
strives to follow the shortest path since it cannot afford the time for a slower motion, that is
a longer path. The moving force does not allow such a delay. Thus the body tries to follow
the shortest path because of its speed, but between the same endpoints the shortest of all
lines is the straight line.3
For Hero, light propagates at a finite velocity, an assumption that goes back as
early as 490 BC, attributed to Empedocles of Agrigentum (in Sicily), two millennia
before the finite speed of light was verified by the Danish astronomer, Ole Romer,
in 1676 (Hildebrandt and Tromba, 1985). The laws of reflection were known by the
Greeks before Hero. Euclid, in his Optics, states that light propagates in straight
lines and that the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. But Hero is
the first to derive the law from a minimization principle: he seeks the shortest path
between two points, subject to the condition of touching an intermediate point on
a plane. Hero uses the metaphysical principle of economy (Eastwood, 1970) to
derive a physical law, an approach at the core of the history of the principle of
least action. According to Damianus of Larissa (fourth century AD), author of On
the Hypotheses in Optics, Hero applies a principle that Aristotle mentions in many
places of his work: Nature does nothing in vain.4 If “Nature did not wish to lead
our sight in vain, she would incline it so as to make equal angles”(Damianus, 1897,
p. 21).
Hero considers the trajectory of a ray that connects points d and g and reflects
on the plane eh (see Figure 2.9). The model of vision for the Greeks was inspired
by a popular analogy between the sun and the eye: the light rays are “visual rays”
that originate in the eye, and the sensation of sight is produced when those linear
tentacles touch the object. Today we know that this model is wrong, but the geome-
try of these rays is maintained if we invert the direction of propagation, and Hero’s
treatment is valid. With an ingenuity that echoes Zenodorus’s proof in Figure 2.2,
Hero draws a line perpendicular to the plane eh through g and considers a sym-
metric point z such that ze = eg. For any point of reflection b, we have zb = bg
3 Translation from Pedersen (1993).
4 For example, in Politics, Aristotle says “Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain” (Aristotle, 350 BC,
Book I, Part II), and in De caelo we read “But God and Nature create nothing that has not its use” (Aristotle,
350 BC/1922, Book I, 4).
z e g
d
b
Figure 2.9 Hero of Alexandria’s original proof of the law of reflection.
and the angles ∠zbe = ∠ebg. These equalities reduce the problem to finding the
shortest path between the initial point d and the reflected, auxiliary point z. The
answer is evident: the straight line dz that intersects the reflecting plane at a. Since
the angles ∠had and ∠zae are equal, and since, by the symmetrical construction
∠zae = ∠eag one concludes with Hero that
∠had = ∠eag; (2.9)
in other words, the angle of incidence is the same as the angle of reflection.
2.3 Galileo and the Curve of Swiftest Descent

One of the first minimum problems connected to dynamics was considered by
Galileo in his masterpiece, Two New Sciences. In the scholium (a brief comment)
to Proposition 36, he states that, for a particle falling between two points in a ver-
tical plane, the “swiftest movement of all from one terminus to the other is not
through the shortest line of all which is the straight line [AC]” (see Figure 2.10),
“but through the circular arc” (Galilei, 1638/1974, p. 212). Galileo’s Proposition
36 antecedes the classical “problem of the brachistochrone” – the curve of swiftest
descent among all possible curves connecting two points (see Section 4.1). The
brachistochrone is a cycloid and not the arc of a circle studied by Galileo. Galileo
compares the time of fall for the straight line AC with that of an arc of a cir-
cle and not with all possible curves; – at least there is no attempt to do so in
Two New Sciences. Galileo finds his minimum curve (or the minimum subject to
having polygons touching the arc of a circle) through a sequence of lemmas that
follow from Euclidean geometry and his postulate of uniform acceleration. And
his justification of the postulate has the principle of least action in a pre-embryonic
stage.
On the third day of Two New Sciences, Galileo introduces us to the notion of
bodies falling with uniform acceleration. It was known before Galileo that “Nature
does employ a certain kind of acceleration for descending heavy things” (Galilei,
1638/1974, p. 197). But what kind of acceleration was not clear. Galileo tells us
2.3 Galileo and the Curve of Swiftest Descent 15
B A
Figure 2.10 The descent of a particle from A to C is faster through the arc of the
circle than through the straight line.
that, through experimentation (naturalia experimenta), he reached the conclusion

that “the intensification of speed is made according to the extension of time,” and
that the distance traveled increases with the square of the time.5 He does not use
the term “uniform” acceleration; he rather talks about “natural” acceleration, and
proposes a metaphysical justification:
we have been led by the hand to the investigation of naturally accelerated motion by con-
sideration of the custom and procedure of Nature itself in all her other works, in the
performance of which she habitually employs the first, simplest, and easiest means . . . .
Thus when I consider that a stone, falling from rest at some height, successively acquires
new increments of speed, why should I not believe that those additions are made by the
simplest and most evident rule? (Galilei, 1638/1974, pp. 153–154).
Galileo studied uniform acceleration by considering the motion on inclined

planes. In one of the first postulates, he assumes that “the degrees of speed acquired
by the same moveable over different inclinations of planes are equal whenever the
heights of those planes are equal.” Later, in 1638, the year of publication of Two
New Sciences (the dialogue parts were written in 1633–1635), Galileo, blind and
under house arrest, added a section expanding on this postulate. In this section he
uses what today we would call the component of the acceleration along the plane.
In contemporary algebraic language (which Galileo never used), the distance d
traveled along an inclined plane is

1 H 2
d= g× t , (2.10)
2 D
where g × (H/D) (see Figure 2.11) is the component of the acceleration g along
the plane.6 The total time ttotal to travel the inclined distance is (setting d = D)
5 Proposition II, Theorem II.
6 The only “modern” addition here is to introduce g and the factor 1/2. Strictly speaking, Galileo is saying that
d ∝ t 2 and that the constant of proportionality is in turn proportional to H/D.
Exploring the Variety of Random
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almost within reach and so slowly that he knew it had been
wounded in some manner.
“It’s not manly sport to catch a hurt creature yet—a bird on the
wing, even a broken one—I’ll try. I’m glad Carlota isn’t here for she’d
call me cruel. She’s a darling little sister but, sometimes, she does
make a big fuss about—nothing at all.”
Watching his chance, he flung the riata upward and caught the
wounded thing. It fell at his feet, dying, and a curious chill crept
through the lad’s veins.
“That’s because of silly old Marta. I’ve listened to her omens till I
always remember them, and that’s ignorance, my father says. Yet,
‘Who snares the wounded shall himself be snared.’ Pooh! I’ve put it
out of misery, anyway. Ha! There’s a road-runner! It’s not hurt and
how, if besides my horse, I take back fresh game for our suppers?
Then, indeed, will that boy think that ‘poor Carlos,’ who must trudge
afoot while his neighbor rides, is of some account in camp.”
Again he flung his slender cord and this time he failed. But nothing
discouraged, he wound it afresh, to be ready for more serious
business and believing that the horses must be very near.
They were; much nearer than he thought; for as he turned toward
the west, he saw close before him the beginning of that hidden,
treeless, valley into which they had retreated.
His approach had been unnoticed. The herd had found a “tank,” or
one of the large, hollow rocks filled with water, with which nature
supplies her children’s need in that land of few streams. The animals
were drinking deeply, eagerly, and his selection could be carefully
made. After it had been, Carlos thought, that he, also, would quench
his thirst at the “tank” but—business first!
Deciding which was the very finest one of all the band, he took
careful, deliberate aim, shot the riata, and caught the unsuspecting
beast by one of its forelegs.
Then there was consternation in the herd but, careless of other
endangering hoofs or aught but his capture, the well-trained lad
rushed forward headlong and closed with his captive. This was no
new task for him. He had been taught the trick of “catching and
throwing” by more than one employee, or passing sojourner, at
Refugio, while his steel-like young muscles well endured the strain
now put upon them. He had been an apt pupil and it was Miguel’s
boast that the lad could beat his instructors at their own business.
Yet the contest which ensued between the wild mustang and the
excited boy was long and severe. There was will on each side but
the human will was aided by watchful intelligence; and when the
young horse-breaker had gained a seat upon his captive’s back he
was satisfied, though some would have fancied the battle but just
begun.
“Fight—caper—rear—buck—kick—do your worst! Have a care! Now,
quiet—quiet, there, and—steady!”
He got his fingers to the animal’s nostrils and his lips to its ear, and
what magic influence there was thus exerted only those wise in
horse-lore can explain. The result was amazing. The mustang
quivered in fear, tried once more, and futilely, to throw the boy from
its back, then stood stock-still. Then Carlos relaxed his own muscles
and suddenly was impelled to look up.
As silently as he had stolen upon the unconscious herd in the valley
so silently he had himself been surrounded. Indians to right of him—
Indians to the left of him—Indians everywhere!
Odd! But his first thought was that silly adage of old Marta:
“Who snares the wounded shall himself be snared.”
Then he rallied. He was as brave as most lads, braver than many. He
had done some wonderful deeds of skill, that day, and his veins still
thrilled with pride in his own achievements. Of Indians in general he
was not afraid; and he saw, at once, that these did not wear the
dress of the hostile Apaches. Yet their faces were stern and
uncompromising as, in silence, the eldest of the company advanced
and laid his hand on the youngster’s shoulder.
This old man nodded toward another brave, who seemed to give
assent, and in that same terrifying silence the others grouped
themselves about their chief. He signaled a youth, who promptly
passed to Carlos’s side, where he still sat upon the subdued mustang
and, with the pretty lariat which had done such clever work that day,
bound its owner’s arms behind his back.
Poor Carlos! This indignity, to be tied like a criminal and with his own
rope, was so bitter that anger rose and banished fear. He tossed his
head defiantly, squared his shoulders, and gazed unflinchingly down
the shallow valley along which he must ride to his fate.
Those who followed glanced admiringly at his superb little figure,
riding proud and unsupported, and many nods of satisfaction were
exchanged among them. Such a small brave would be a worthy
addition to their tribe.
After a time, the valley turned sharply toward the northwestern
mountains, and the prisoner fixed his gaze upon them, sadly
thinking:
“How little did I dream of entering them like this! Poor, poor Carlota!
Her heart will break.”
Stop! He must not think of Carlota. He must think of nothing that
would unman him. If he must die there, in the wilderness, it should
be as became his father’s son!
CHAPTER XXIII
IN THE DARKNESS
But Carlos was not to die.

The Indians, into whose hands he had fallen, were of the most
peaceable tribe left in the wide west—Zunis, of the Pueblos; and it
was toward one of their villages, or pueblos—from which they take
their race name—that they now conducted him. They had recently
been greatly harassed by some of their lawless neighbors and
intended to make an example of their captive, though without
personal injury.
As they advanced on their journey Carlos noticed in surprise that
there were fine fields of corn and well cultivated vineyards along the
banks of a stream and felt that they must be nearing some great
rancho. He had heard his father describe the curious villages of the
Pueblos and hoped that it was to such a place that he was being
taken; for, even in this strait, his curiosity was great and he was
eager to see new things. Moreover, the ride continued so long that
his spirits rose as he reflected:
“Evidently, they aren’t going to kill me yet awhile.”
Then he stole a glance into the face of the brave walking nearest
him and observed that while it was as stern as ever it was not at all
“blood thirsty.” This increased both his courage and his interest.
“What a tale I shall have to tell—if I live to tell it! I believe I shall.
I’m sure these must be some of the ‘good Indians’ which the Captain
said were all dead. They look almost less Indian than Mexican,
though they are very tall and straight. That old fellow in front is
splendid. I wish, oh! how I do wish, I had learned to talk Pueblo
when Carlota did and my father warned me, indeed, coaxed me. He
said that, living as we did, among so many different people, we
should study the language of each. That I would find then the
‘knowledge’ that’s ‘power.’ It would be ‘power,’ indeed, if I were able
to ask these people if they know what they are doing and to whom
they are doing it!”
At this point he cast a haughty look about him and gave his comely
head a higher toss. What? What was that? Did he detect something
like a grim smile on the lips of that young fellow at the left?
If so, the smile was too fleeting to have been real. The man was
merely adjusting the folds of his blanket, and it might have been a
shadow of these which nettled Carlos.
Nettled he was; and, although he knew he would not be understood,
he angrily demanded:
“Who are you? What are you going to do with me?”
At sound of his voice the leader of the party turned half about, as if
to answer, but checked the seeming impulse; and, in the same stolid
silence, the party pressed forward among the scattered shrubs and
trees which now marked their path.
Gradually, the trees increased in size and number. There were other
and wider streams, at one of which a man stooped and filled a gourd
that hung at his waist. He offered this to Carlos, holding it to the
lad’s parched lips with a kindliness of gesture that, surely, betokened
no malice.
Carlos would have pushed the gourd away, but nature was too
strong for this; so, setting his lips to the rim, he drained the cup to
the bottom.
“Oh! how delicious that was! Thank you!” said he gratefully.
The gourd was refilled and emptied a second time; then the Indian
himself drank. So did several others of the party which numbered, as
the prisoner judged without seeing those behind him, a dozen or
more men.
Onward again; the long unbroken strides of the redskins equalling
the restless pace of the led mustang upon which the captive rode.
He was about to ask if he, also, might get down and walk; hoping to
make them understand his gestures if not his words, when a sudden
turn of the mountain spur disclosed the picture he had longed to
see. Before him, on a terrace-like hill, lay a cluster of adobe huts, or,
as it rather seemed, one wide-spreading habitation which might
shelter many people.
If his captors did not understand his speech, at least, they did his
smile of satisfaction, as he cried:
“A Pueblo village! Then I am safe!”
He eagerly studied it as it lay, gradually rising upon the slope, its
succession of roofs appearing like some gigantic stairway. Upon the
roofs some women were sitting, weaving. He noticed the ladder-like
arrangement, leading from the ground to the top, by which the
buildings could be entered; though there were, also, openings here
and there upon the level of the foundation. His observation was
terminated by somebody’s lifting him from his horse and tieing his
own sash over his eyes.
“You shall not! You—shall—not! If I am to die—I’ll die with my eyes
wide open!” he screamed, excitedly. For now his fear had returned
and he as confidently expected death as he had life, but a moment
before.
There followed some talk among those who had been most active in
his capture, and then he was again lifted and borne onward,
upward, as it seemed, though he could neither see nor help himself
save by his shrieks which, however, availed him nothing. Thus,
struggling and protesting, he was carried whither his captors chose;
and, after what seemed an hour but was only a few minutes, he was
unceremoniously dumped upon an earthen floor.
Leaping to his feet he peered around him. He seemed to be alone
and he was in darkness.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE EVENING AND THE MORNING
When they left Tuttle for the mountains, the young Manuels had
obtained permission to resume their own costumes. They had found
the skirts and fitted bodice for Carlota, and the bagging overalls for
Carlos, most annoying, and once more arrayed in their familiar
garments they “felt like themselves.” Dennis, almost enviously,
admired the simplicity of Carlota’s clothing and was proud to attend
a maiden so picturesquely attired.
“Faith, me little lady, ye might be one o’ them Injun chiefseses’
daughters herself, so ye might! An’, if we meet up with any, they’ll
go easy like, forby they’d be botherin’ their own kin.”
“I guess they’d soon find out the difference. My hair is yellow and an
Indian’s is always dark. Dennis, did you know I could talk a little of
their language?”
“Sure, an’ I didn’t but I believe it entire. Me purty dear, you’re that
clever—”
“That’s not ‘clever.’ Clever means to be very wise, like my father. But
learning to talk different ways, why, that’s just fun. I used to show
our visiting Indians something and they would tell me the name of
it; then they would ask me for it, in real earnest, maybe, and I
would soon know what they meant. Dennis, if I live to be a woman I
mean to know about every language there is in the whole world, and
about every single flower, too. Or if—not every—then as many as I
can. I do, really.”
He regarded her with all-believing eyes, yet there crept a touch of
commiseration into his honest face.
“Hear to the purty girleen! But ’tis a fine headache you’ll be havin’ all
your life, Miss Carlota. Och! You will that.”
“Knowing things doesn’t make your head ache, Dennis Fogarty. How
can you think so?”
“Oh! I know, I know. Once, Miss Carlota, away back in Connemara, I
was sent to the priest to be taught. Arrah musha, the day!” He
bitterly groaned, remembering it.
“Well, what of it? Come on, please. Don’t let your Cork drag along so
or we shall never be there. That’s better. I don’t mean to hurry you,
but I’m so glad to be moving, and I do think the broncho travels
more and more slowly all the time. I’m afraid that when you
conquered him you took all the heart out of him. But, what about
you and the priest?”
“Sure, it was mighty little. ’Twas only one day betwixt us. I goes in
the morning, goes I, along with more little gossoons; an’ there sits
his riverence, all easy like, in his chair. So we pays him our duty as
we should, ye understand, an’ he stands us all up in a row. Then he
whips out a card with them things they call letters printed out on’t,
big an’ bold. I was the top o’ the row; an’: ‘Dennis Fogarty,’ says he,
‘what’s that thing?’ says he.
“‘Faith, Father,’ says I, ‘’tis nought but a couple o’ black streaks with
another streak crossin’ them same.’ ‘’Tis A!’ says the father, says he.
But—”
The narrator paused, groaned, and moved uneasily, as if the
memory were painful. Or—was it the saddle?
“Well, and what then? What next? Dennis, when my Miguel is telling
a story he never stops right in the most interesting part. Never.”
“Yes, me dear. I know, I know. But, little lady, that there ‘Greaser’
never went to school in Connemara!”
“You did! But you’ll never get away from that school nor tell me
what you learned at it, if you don’t hurry. Now—what next?”
The ex-trackman scratched his head.
“Hmm. The next thing was a crack on me pate! an’ that is the sum
an’ the substance of all me book learnin’, avick!”
“Why, Dennis! Did you give up your education for such a trifle as
that?”
“‘Trifle,’ says the little colleen! ’Twas no trifle, at all, at all, to get hit
with the father’s shillalah; an’ the smart o’ the blow—belike, I’m
feelin’ it yet!”
He rubbed his hard head with such a comical grimace that Carlota
laughed aloud.
“Was that, really, all you ever studied?”
“All, says you? Sure, ’twas more nor enough. Home I went to me
dad an’ he topped off the crack of the priest’s stick with a crack of
his own, and set me to hoein’ the praties. Yes, I know, I know.
Learnin’ is nice for them that can’t get on without it, but Dennis
Fogarty’s the boy as can. Och! This ridin’ like a gentleman is a’ most
harder nor walkin’ the track, so it be.”
“How soon do you s’pose we’ll find my brother?”
“Bother! But yourself is the one for questions!”
“It is you who are bothering, Dennis; for though I ask them I notice
that you never answer.”
“Well, then, I’ll answer that one. We’ll meet up with him by
sundown!”
“That’s a dear Dennis. That’s quite as kind as Miguel and very like
him. He always promises whatever I wish, whether he can keep his
promise or not. I think I like that, anyway, it makes you feel so good
inside. But, come on! I’ll race Connemara against master Cork!
Straight to the ‘north!’ The way our father went, the way my Carlos
followed, and now—we. Go!”
The burro set off on a short-paced but steady trot and Dennis
valiantly tried to keep up; but Cork would not be urged, cajoled, nor
punished into faster than a walking gait, which irritated Carlota and
secretly gratified the ex-trackman.
Only those who, at their first trial, have continued horseback
exercise for hours can understand his sufferings. But finally, the girl
suspected the truth and modified the burro’s pace. She even
suggested that Dennis should walk.
“Would—Meegell?”
“Yes. If I told him to,” she replied, convincingly.
The alacrity with which the Irishman dismounted was proof of his
relief; also, that he would not be outdone in anything by the
unknown Mexican.
Yet, walking seemed very slow, and though they tried to make the
way merry by stories, and plans for the future when they should all
—including Dennis Fogarty, Miner—be back at Refugio, they had not
accomplished any great distance before the sudden twilight of the
west came down upon them. Nor, apparently, were they any nearer
meeting the lost lad than when they left the Burnham’s wagon.
Both were wise concerning the perils of lonely night-travel in that
region, so decided to turn aside into a little ravine which suggested
water and a camping place. It was even, by some miles, nearer the
mountains they had hoped to reach, but they did not realize this
then.
Making what haste they could to the spot they had chosen they
found, as they had hoped, a spring of refreshing water, and dropping
down beside it drew long breaths of delight. Then they plunged their
hot faces into the little stream and drank deeply.
“Sure, that was better than bein’ made President o’ this fine
counthry, it was!” exclaimed Dennis, but Carlota only sighed in
content. Physical comfort influenced her mind, also, so that she said,
after another moment of rest:
“Somehow, I don’t feel so worried about Carlos, now. Do you?”
“’Tis meself that never was.”
“I thought you were.”
“Acushla! Thinkin’ an’ bein’ is two different matters, Miss Carlota.
That fine brother o’ yours is a nimble gossoon, so he be. If he slips
into a scrape he’ll easy slip out again. So, bein’s we’re here, we’d
best take another sup o’ that blessed water an’ a bite to eat, and be
off to the land o’ dreams.”
“I’ll help you. I know how to saddle and unsaddle a horse as well as
any caballero on the rancho. See—this quick way! Now, take a
handful of grass and rub down your Cork, while I do the same for
Connemara. Then we’ll tether them where they can get a good
supper and lie down to sleep.”
“Not before you’d eat a bit, little lady!” protested the hungry man.
“Oh! I’m too tired to eat.”
“Then so be I!” he asserted with a lengthening face.
“But you must. You need food.”
“Yes, I know, I know. Howsumever, ’tis not the Fogarty’ll do that
when his Miss Carlota goes supperless to bed,” he plaintively
answered.
“I—I was saving mine.”
“And I.”
“Dennis, for whom?”
“For that same as yourself. Sure.”
“Oh! you’re a dear, kind fellow!”
To the ex-trackman this seemed almost as much sustenance as
would that loaf which he was so conscious of having inside his jacket
—“So handy like to tempt a poor lad.” Indeed, they were both very
hungry. Also, they were both perfectly healthy; therefore, their self-
denial was short-lived.
“Dennis?” she called to him, in the dim light.
“Yes, me little lady.”
“I think—we might take—just a little of—of the crust.”
“I’m thinkin’ that same.”
“Besides, I have the jam-cake.”
“Faith, an’ what more could a runaway ask? More, by token, to-
morrow’s not come an’ to each day falls its lot, says I.”
With that he pulled forth his loaf and spread the gay kerchief on
Carlota’s lap.
“Do ye mind that, me dear? Sure, there’s more nor a plenty for us
an’ him, too—when he comes.”
Alas! it is the first step that counts. In this case, the first slice;
Dennis cut that very thick and bountifully spread it with butter from
the hidden store. This he gave to the girl, who ate it more rapidly
and unthinkingly than she had ever eaten anything before. As she
did so, all fatigue passed away and, perching herself upon a rock,
she swung her feet in a satisfied fashion that did the heart of Dennis
Fogarty great good.
For once he did not wait till she had finished, and soon he, also, felt
the comfort of food. That he did not swing his feet, as she did, was
simply because he was sitting upon the ground and could not; but
he began to sing in that funny monotone which he considered music
and that was, at least, an outward expression of his inward content.
“Dennis, that was so good! If there’ll be enough, I’d like just another
little tiny bit.”
The tender hearted fellow craftily hid the loaf behind him as he
pretended to examine it, then cheerfully replied:
“Enough, says she? Faith, there’s enough an’ more nor plenty for a
dozen like ye. An’ butter—galore.”
With that ferocious dirk of his, he slashed off another thick portion
and gave it to her; but he did not take a second piece for himself,
though his stomach lustily demanded the indulgence, and with
heroic sacrifice he put the remnant of the bread as far behind him as
he could reach.
Afterward, he pulled branches from the small pines about the spring
and piled them for Carlota’s bed; over these he spread his own fine
serape and, with a magnificent wave of his hand, motioned his “little
lady” to take her needed rest.
“Thank you, good Dennis. I believe I was almost asleep, right here
on the rock. It’s a lovely bed, but first, I must say my prayers.”
So the grizzled, labor-worn man and the innocent child knelt
together and put themselves and their desires into the safe keeping
of the loving Father who cared for them alike.
Five minutes later, they were both asleep, unconscious of danger or
treachery; Dennis happily snoring and Carlota dreaming of Refugio
and its beloved garden. Nor to either did it seem more than a
moment before they were suddenly awakened, to find the sun
already rising and a tall figure looming above them.
CHAPTER XXV
AN IRISH-INDIAN ONSLAUGHT
Carlota leaped to her feet and Dennis tried to rise, but a heavy foot
was on his breast and a stern face bent over him, while an uplifted
forefinger pointed dismay into his inmost soul.
“Me hour has come!” thought the unhappy fellow, but he made no
further effort to move. The command of those unflinching eyes was
not to be disobeyed. He wondered if the intruder’s hand held the
weapon with which he would be killed, but was almost too terrified
to care. In his horror he felt himself already dying and his eyelids
fluttered back into place as if for the last time.
“Oh! that is his salvation! If he will only keep them shut till it is
over!” thought Carlota, watching.
After her sudden uprising she had not moved, and this fact was a
relief to the stranger, so steadily regarding the prostrate Irishman. If
she had screamed it would, probably, have brought the affair to a
fatal and immediate climax. Thus a moment passed; another—more
—an interminable time! The trio of human beings remained rigid,
spellbound by as many varying emotions, while those terrible ten
minutes which seemed an eternity dragged by. Then the foot was
lifted from Dennis’s chest and he was gruffly ordered to: “Get up.”
At first, he was powerless to obey. Not until the sound of a sharp
blow, followed by a grunt of satisfaction sent a thrill of new life
through his palsied veins. Then he rose and saw the man who had
menaced him standing a few feet away and pointing to the ground
where he lay, crushed to lifelessness, a monstrous and most
poisonous centipede.
“He died, not you,” said the stranger, in broken English.
“Yes, Dennis! That dreadful thing was almost upon your throat. Oh!
horrible,” cried Carlota.
Dennis threw back his knotted hand to his neck and plucked away
an imaginary reptile. He began to feel them crawling over him,
everywhere. He had not sufficient composure left in which to thank
the stranger, who, however, expected nothing of the sort. He
comforted the Irishman by saying:
“No more. Mate killed. Not plenty.”
“Yes, dear Dennis, you’re safe now, I’m sure. It seemed as if the
dreadful creature would never, never finish his crawling over you.
The whole width of your body and so slow! If you’d moved or
disturbed him he would have thrust his deadly fangs into your flesh
and you’d have died. I’ve heard about those things. It was the kind
God kept you, dear old Dennis, and sent this good man just in time
to save you.”
Dennis was truly thankful and humble; yet he rubbed his confused
head and wondered what need there had been of the peril if rescue
were foreordained. However, such problems were too deep for his
simple mind and he looked up in a manner to reveal the amusing
perplexity he felt.
“Escapin’ the serpent to fall into the Injun’s hands! The fire an’ the
fryin’-pan, belike.”
The rescuer was, indeed, an Indian, though he spoke fairly good
English. But Carlota paid less heed to him than to the possibility of
her wandering brother having suffered the same fate which had just
menaced Dennis and, it might be, herself also. Laying her hand upon
the stranger’s arm, she begged:
“Oh! tell me, please, have you seen a boy anywhere?”
The Irishman shivered in alarm at the girl’s audacity, yet no harm
ensued. The Indian merely looked at her and answered by one
word: “Plenty.”
“Where? Oh! please, please say where! Was it hereabouts? My
brother, my twin—”
Then, indeed, did a curious smile show upon the redskin’s face. He
wheeled around and pointed up the mountain through a canyon that
seemed a continuation of the ravine where they then stood.
Whatever his ability, he made scant use of his English, for all he
answered was: “Come.”
Just then uprose a direful cry from the Fogarty:
“Ochone! Me bread! Me horse! The thievin’ creatur’! I’ll break every
bone in his carcass, I will that!”
Even the dignified Indian was interested. There was Dennis again at
war with his tethered broncho, who was nonchalantly nibbling the
last of the priceless loaf—their own breakfast.
“Dennis! Dennis! Are you going to fight him every day, as you did Mr.
Grady? Stop—I’m ashamed of you.”
“Stop, is it? An’ the breakfast clean gone?”
“But that is your fault, not his. You shouldn’t have left it where he
could get it. Besides, who knows but it is all dirty and—and
centipede-y?”
The Indian waited until there was a lull in affairs, then quietly untied
the broncho, motioned that Carlota should mount her burro—still
unsaddled, and taking the leading straps of both animals, strode up
the canyon at a rapid pace. By a gesture he indicated that Dennis
was to bring the saddles, blankets, and other belongings of the pair;
and so intimidated was Mr. Fogarty that he dared not disobey.
Carlota rode as silent as her guide. She guessed that he was taking
her to some settlement and she saw that he was such as had
frequented Refugio, and from whom she had never received other
than kind treatment. She was consumed by anxiety concerning
Carlos but, from her father’s talks and her own slight experience, she
knew sufficient of Indian character to understand that this silence
would best serve her purpose. She had asked for information and
the stranger had answered, “Come.”
So because of her faith that she was being swiftly led to her brother,
her heart grew light and she began to sing; and hearing the song
floating down to him through the gulch, poor Dennis made a virtue
of necessity and loaded himself worse than any pack mule. Then he
started forward whither the others had now disappeared.
It was a brief but anxious pilgrimage. At every step he fancied a
creeping, stinging reptile beneath his feet, though he reckoned upon
the protection which his mighty boots were to him. On either
shoulder he bore a saddle which continually grew heavier, as is the
habit of burdens carried. The blanket and serape airily floated
anywhere it happened, underfoot or overhead, at the caprice of the
wind; and the tin box of his “little lady” played a jingling
accompaniment to the whole.
“Faith! ’tis well I’d all that fine practice, hod-carryin’ to them tall
buildin’s in Chicago, before I took up with railroadin’, now isn’t it, Mr.
Fogarty?” he ejaculated, as he neared his journey’s end.
A moment later, as he came in sight of the pueblo and a group of its
inhabitants assembled before it, he complacently added:
“An’ sure’s me name’s Dennis, they’re all waitin’ to receive me!”
As he approached the spot a shout was raised, and his elation
vanished. Believing it to be a “war cry,” the vicissitudes of the
morning ended in collapse. He caught a glimpse of Carlota being
lifted from her burro and led away between two squaws. It seemed
to him that these forced her up a steep ladder, then threw her
downward into some invisible depth. Heaped with his own burdens,
the Irishman sank to the ground. An ague of fear shook him, his
face paled, and a cold sweat came out upon his temples. Cowering
thus in terror, he saw the assembled Indians swoop down upon him
from the terrace. Then, as do those in mortal extremity, he began to
see visions and dream dreams, and fancy suddenly brought before
him the face, as he had imagined it, of Miguel, the Hated! In similar
circumstance, what would this much-envied “Greaser” have done?
The thought of the Spaniard acted like a tonic. With a yell as wild as
an Indian’s own, Dennis now arose, while the encumbering blankets
and saddles fell unheeded about him. Thrusting his hand into his
belt he unsheathed his dangerous dirk, crying:
“Carlota! Me own little lady! Have no fear! ’Tis comin’ I am—so ’ware
to ye, ye bloodthirsty, murderin’ Injuns! Leave her go—leave!”
Mad with his own prowess he blindly rushed forward, his shining
blade catching the rays of the sun and fiercely heralding his
advance.
But, hark! His enemies were upon him! He made one tremendous
lunge with his terrible knife, and Mr. Fogarty knew no more.
CHAPTER XXVI
CONFLICTING EMOTIONS
“Dennis! Dennis! Please open your eyes. O, Dennis! How could you
be so foolish?”
“Eh? What? Hey? An’ be I still—alive?”
“It’s not by your own merit that you are. But, since you’ve only
broken your arm and cracked your head, I’m thankful to scold you,
Dennis. Silly, silly fellow!”
The ex-trackman and amateur desperado raised his sound arm and
carefully examined his head. It ached badly, yet it seemed intact.
“Skull, is it? An’ where is the break in it?”
“Of course, I don’t mean that, exactly. You bumped it pretty hard.
What were you meaning to do, Dennis?”
He tried to rise but failed. Then he looked about him and realized
that he was lying on a straw pallet, upon one of those curious roofs
he had seen rising before him, when he engaged in the late combat.
He reproachfully regarded Carlota, who sat comfortably curled up,
her face bright, her hair freshly brushed, and her whole attitude one
of entire complacency. Yet, as he made a second effort to rise and
turned giddy, her expression changed to one of pity.
“There, poor dear, lie still. I’ll tell you all about it. Oh! Dennis, we’ve
found friends! Wait. I forgot that the chief’s wife said you were to
drink this as soon as you awoke.”
She lifted his head upon her arm and held an earthen bowl to his
lips and he drank from it, eagerly. He was both faint and thirsty and
the warm liquid was very grateful to him. It was a broth of meat
which he, at once, termed “victuals an’ drink.”
“There, that is good. The others say that she is a fine ‘medicine
woman’ and it should give you strength.”
All this was very astonishing to the injured man whose chief interest,
however, concerned himself.
“What happened to me, Miss Carlota?”
“Why—I guess you tried to kill somebody—and he objected. The
young men who were going to their daily tasks were gathered on
the terrace, singing—”
“‘Singin’,’ says she!”
“Surely. It’s the custom in this pueblo. So the woman told me. It’s
their ‘labor song,’ before they go down into the fields to work. A
hymn to the Great Spirit, praising him and asking his blessing on the
day. I think it’s a lovely ceremony and when we get home to
Refugio, I shall ask my father to have our men do just that way.
Only, I’m afraid some of them won’t wish it. They aren’t very revi—
reverentiational. That isn’t the right word, Dennis, but it means
doing honor to God. But, oh, Dennis! I am so happy!”
This amazing statement aroused the wounded man’s curiosity and so
aided his recovery.
“I—maybe I can sit up now. I’m dead, entirely, but—I’ll try.”
“You’re better, Dennis Fogarty. And if you’re alive how can you be
dead?”
“Yes, I know, I know. But if Injuns can sing hymns—Faith! It must
be in some better world nor any I’ve seen. So we must all be
together in another. Injuns! Arrah musha! The beasts!”
“You are not in another world, you are still in the same dear old one
where you’ve always been. You’re a darling fellow, but you’re almost
as silly as ‘The Dancer.’ Now you must listen. First: this is a Pueblo
village. It belongs to a very peaceful tribe. My brother is here;
Carlos, my own brother, and he is safe, too. Can you understand?”
“Sure, Miss Carlota, have I no wits entirely? If he’s here, why isn’t he
here? Tell me that, if ye please.”
She laughed, then answered rather soberly:
“Why, it’s the oddest thing! They’ve ‘arrested’ him!”
“They’ve what? ’Deed, it’s muddled I am.”
“It’s like what my father told about people who did wrong in the big
towns and cities. Other people take the wrong-doing people and put
them in a prison. Well, they have put my Carlos, my own sweetest,
innocentest brother, in a sort of prison here. The woman told me
and that I should see him very soon. They’re going to have his ‘trial’
this morning and you must get well right off. Think of it! Can’t you
hurry up? But, of course, soon as he tells them it will be all right. He
has done nothing he should be punished for.”
Dennis drew himself up and bolstered his back against an angle of
the next roof. The sun was getting high and the shadow he thus
obtained soothed his still aching head. But Carlota was native to that
land and unclouded sunshine never disturbed her. It merely set her
golden hair a-glitter while she unblinkingly studied the details of this
mud-built pueblo. In the adoring gaze of the Irishman she seemed
herself to radiate sunshine and he winked fast, as if the vision
blinded him; or to hide a tell-tale tear, forced from him by weakness
and dismay. But she saw the betraying drop and taxed him with it:
“Crying? You, Dennis? When you should be so thankful? Or does
your arm pain you? Of course it must, yet wasn’t it a good way the
oldest ‘medicine man’ fixed it? Adobe mud, or something, outside
the sticks, which are not to be touched, he says, for ‘a moon and a
moon.’ That’s their queer kind of clock. By then it will be better than
the other arm, which you might break to match, if you like!”
She leaned back, laughing at her own conceit, and, since he had the
happy faculty of making fun at his own expense, he joined in her
mirth. Yet he felt that their situation was graver than she realized,
and begged:
“Begin at the very start o’ the matter, if ye please, Miss Carlota, an’
tell it me body an’ bones, from when ye rode off with the Injun an’
left me to carry the truck.”
“That wasn’t my fault, poor Dennis. I’d have stayed to help you if I
could but even I was a little afraid—then. I’m not now. I’m so happy
because Carlos is here. He is well. No centipede stung him, and
nothing hurt him. We’ll see him soon and we’ll tell them that— But
I’m getting to be as great a talker as you, Dennis, dear. Do you wish
another drink?”
He nodded, and now was fully able to hold the bowl for himself with
his uninjured arm.
“We rode from you clear to the pueblo without a word said, though I
saw the man often look at my clothes. Then up to my hair, and down
to the ground. All the time I was longing to ask—”
“Sure, ’twas hard for ye not!”
“But as soon as we came here we saw women, squaws, at work.
They were getting breakfast, broiling meat upon coals and baking
little cakes of meal. They, too, looked at me as if I were—they didn’t
know what! Their clothes are more like Marta’s and Anita’s than
mine are. Much prettier things than the old blue ones Mrs. Burnham
gave me.”
“Did they give ye a bit o’ their breakfast, Miss Carlota?”
“Afterward. Plenty of it and it was nice. But, don’t interrupt, please,
or I’ll never get through. As soon as the man who brought us had
spoken to them in their own language—which they didn’t know that
I knew, too, a little—they came and took my hands. They smiled at
me and yet I thought they looked sorry. One of them touched my
tunic and said something which means ‘pretty.’ So, I told her all
about it. Then they led me up to one of these queer roofs and down
into the house. It is very cosy and comfortable. There is a sort of
fireplace, though I think they do their cooking out of doors when it’s
as pleasant as now. One of them washed my face, just as if I’d been
a baby, or Teddy; and they brushed my hair with a curious comb
that pulled it dreadfully.”
“Bad cess to the meddlesome creatur’s!”
“Oh! no. It was all in kindness; and just as I was hoping for my
breakfast, there were you, outside the walls, making such trouble for
us both! Dennis, why did you run at the men with your knife?”
“Arrah musha! ’Twas themselves came runnin’ to me, first hand;
yellin’ like wildcats, as they be!”
“Nonsense. That was the song, the hymn, as I told you. It wasn’t
music I liked very well, though it sounded a good deal like the way
you sing, Dennis, dear,” she commented, frankly. “They saw you
carrying the saddles and things and, from the man who brought us,
they’d heard about the centipede. They meant to bid you only a
decent welcome, yet you rushed at them as if you would murder
them. You would, too, if one of them hadn’t caught your arm just in
time. He hurried to stop you and snatched away your dirk, but that
threw you to the ground and your head struck a stone. The women
said that your arm was doubled under you and they thought you
were killed.”
“Hmm. I know; I know. Bad cess to me for an ill-thriven idjut!”
“No. I understand. You thought, as the Captain did, that there could
be but one kind of Indian. Yet you should have known better, after
that good one saved your life from the centipede. That’s all. Your
arm has been fixed and you’ve been fed; and as soon as they have
had that—that ‘trial’—of Carlos, we’ll go on again and try to find the
Burnhams. I wish they’d hurry it up!”
“Wisha, for what are they ‘tryin’’ him?”
“For—taking a horse. Just a horse.”
“Wh-e-ew!” said Dennis and said no more. He had lived in that
region long enough to know that horse stealing is the unforgivable
crime, against white man or red; and, indeed, this made the affair a
most serious one.
Carlota was frightened by his manner and quickly demanded:
“Why do you say ‘Whew!’ in that tone of voice, Mr. Dennis Fogarty?
It isn’t at all a nice word and it isn’t nice in you to use it.”
“Sure, I’m uneasy, Miss Carlota. A horse is a horse an’ there’s no
denyin’ that same.”
“HE OFTEN CAUGHT A WILD HORSE”
“Dennis, that fall has made you silly.”
“Very like that’s the truth you be speakin’. But, for why did he go
steal a horse?”
“He never! How can a body ‘steal’ what belongs to nobody else? At
home he often caught a wild horse out of a herd and broke it to
ride. He’s very—very expertatious that way, Dennis. My Miguel was
terr’ble proud of him.”
Then, after a moment, she continued:
“I don’t see what made you disturb me when I was so happy. I wish
somebody—But I won’t wait to wish. I’ll go straight away and find
out what it all means. I will see my brother. I will make them bring
him out from wherever he is, for he can’t talk with these people and
I can. Oh! how glad I am I learned, even if only a little bit!”
She hastily left him to his lonely foreboding, there upon the roof,
which grew unpleasantly warm as the shadows moved from him.
Scrambling down into the interior of the house upon which they had
been sitting, Carlota wildly demanded of the first person she met to
be taken to her brother.
“I must and shall see him. Where is he?”
“Where you will be if you make an uproar. The council is
deliberating.”
That the girl would dare force her presence upon the elders of the
village did not enter the informant’s mind till she saw Carlota look
frantically around and then dart toward the nearest opening in the
inner wall. This was not in the direction of the hall of justice, but it
led—somewhere! and through it the child ran, crying at the top of
her voice:
“Carlos! My Carlos! Where are you?”
Then she was confronted by an aged woman, who caught and
almost viciously questioned her:
“Would you rush before the wise men thus—you?”
“Wise? You mean wicked—wicked! Oh, my father, my father! Why
did we ever leave Refugio!” and shrieking, she threw herself prone
on the floor and buried her face in her arms.
CHAPTER XXVII
BY DIFFERENT TONGUES
“Refugio.”
The word was magic. The angry woman who had laid hand upon
Carlota’s shoulder started at the sound and intently regarded the
unhappy child. Then she stooped and again touched her, but, this
time, with gentle, tremulous fingers.
“Say that again, Señorita. Again.”
The girl sprang up, for to hear the familiar Spanish was, also, magic.
“What? Who are you? It was Refugio, I said. The House of Refuge—
which this is not! Why—why?”
The wrinkled face softened to comeliness, and a look grew upon it
which tempted Carlota to clasp it between her own two palms, in a
dainty fashion she had, and to beseech:
“Do you know Refugio? Have you ever been at my home?”
“Are you the Master’s daughter?”
“Yes, oh! yes. Do you know him? Is he, too, here?”
The woman shook her head.
“No. Why should he be here? But I know the place, yes. In my heart
of hearts, why not? And the blessed Lady who died for my poor son.
Pablo, soul of my life, afflicted of God, Pablo—the natural, where are
you this day!”
“‘Pablo’? The ‘Lady of Refugio’? Then—who are you?”
Carlota was now upon her knees before the trembling creature
whose memory had been so strangely stirred. But, at sight of her
thus humbled, the crone herself stood up and set the child upon a
bench. Still standing, she burst into a rapid story of that which has
been already told: of Pablo’s desperate illness and his nursing back
to health by the all-loving “Lady of Refugio.” How that name, that
household, was a spell to conjure by; and that here—if she who had
long ago married a Pueblo had influence—the children of Refugio
should have rich and speedy justice. More: there could be nothing
too good or sacred in the whole tribe for them.
“Come, little girl. Let us go. Ah! proud, proud am I thus once to lay
my hand upon the flesh of her who died to save my son!”
“Is Pablo here?”
“Not now. Sometimes he comes, far, far between. He is not like
others. Against my father’s will I married and I have been punished,
yes. Against his will and against the faith I had been taught by the
good Padres. I was happy, why not? Till my husband, a brave, fell
dead in the field, gored by one of his own cattle. My son is happier
than I, for he knows neither sin nor its punishment. But, come. I can
still be of use. Come.”
The councilors were amazed by the intrusion of old Paula and her
charge, but listened respectfully to her story and her plea. She was
reputed to be very wise and was known to be a most excellent
nurse. True, those hardy Pueblos rarely required nursing, yet, when
they did, it were well to be friends with her who ministered to them.
The dose might be wrong if the giver were offended.
When she ceased speaking Carlos was immediately brought out of
his dark room and set in the midst; and to see the twins rush,
sobbing, yet laughing, into each other’s arms touched even those
stolid Indians and inclined some to lenient judgment.
Yet, it was the eldest man speaking, and he must be heard:
“Brothers, he stole our horse. From our own wild herd. We have
been greatly harassed. Punishment is just. If we make not example
of the bird in the hand, how deal with the bird uncaught? There is
peace between us and our white brothers but—our white brothers
still steal our horses. This youth is swift of aim; he is proud; a
Pueblo of whom to say: ‘Behold, a brave!’ His father—” a suggestive
shrug of the shoulders intimated that this unknown father was
recreant and had deserted his offspring. “Let him be to us a son and
she our daughter. This is my wisdom.”
Then the council gravely laid the matter before the youthful prisoner
and listened closely to his simple reply, which, acting as interpreters,
old Paula and Carlota eagerly translated.
“On my father’s rancho are many herds of horses. All are wild. I did
not ask to whom they belonged. When I wished I sought one, as I
did from yours. I have been taught the art. I am not a thief. I, I
would not have ‘stolen,’ no. Not if I walked all the days of my life.
But I thought the free creatures of the plains were God’s, alone.
Well, then; if I did wrong I will take punishment, as should the son
of man who is brave. After you have done your will I will go. Nothing
can make me stay. My father has not forever left his children. Since
he comes not it is because, for some reason I do not know, that he
cannot. My sister and I will go to him, and tell him this story. He will
restore what is due. I owe nothing to anyone except good will, and
that I will pay as I may. Moreover—you still have the horse—and I
broke him for you.”
The naive conclusion of the argument was so consistent with the
childish pleader that some of those stern judges smiled. After all, he
was but a boy and he spoke the truth; and the old chief who would
have liked to rear the youngster as his own was even more desirous
now. But he was just, and it was he who first extended the hand-
clasp of peace.
Radiant with joy at their dismissal, the twins left the hall of justice
and returned where they had left Dennis. He had vanished, yet,
while they were searching the many roofs they heard his voice in
one of the courtyards below.
“Hark! The foolish fellow! He imagines that hallooing so loud will
make them understand him as well as if he knew their language!”
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The principle of least action History and physics 1st

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ANTHONY BLOCH is the Alexander Ziwet Collegiate Professor of Mathematics

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

List of Illustrations page ix

2 Prehistory of Variational Principles 6

3 An Excursion to Newton’s Principia 38

4 The Optical-Mechanical Analogy, Part I 51

4.1.2 Leibniz’s Solution of the Brachistochrone 55

5 D’Alembert, Lagrange, and the Statics-Dynamics Analogy 79

6 The Optical-Mechanical Analogy, Part II: The Hamilton-Jacobi

6.5.1 Example: Particle in a Uniform Gravitational Field 140

7 Relativity and Least Action 162

8 The Road to Quantum Mechanics 189

8.6 Dirac’s Lagrangian View of Quantum Mechanics 209

Appendix A Newton’s Solid of Least Resistance, Using Calculus 221

2.1 Adapted from Zenodorus: equiangular polygon page 8

3.5 From Proposition 7 of the Principia 44

6.14 Focus and saddle path for a mirror 149

than the material found in previous chapters. We included a discussion on kinetic

2.1 Queen Dido and the Isoperimetric Problem

They sailed to the place where today you’ll see

The isoperimetric problem was solved by the Greek mathematician Zenodorus

2.1.1 Zenodorus’s Solution*

Using the Pythagorean theorem

Figure 2.6 Adapted from Zenodorus.

A regular polygon of n sides can be decomposed into n equal isosceles triangles

O A × (AB − AD )/2 > O D × (α − β) (2.7a)

Multiplying the inequalities of equations (2.7), we obtain Zenodorus’s result:

Figure 2.8 A variational problem without a solution.

2.2 Hero of Alexandria and the Law of Reflection

Figure 2.9 Hero of Alexandria’s original proof of the law of reflection.

2.3 Galileo and the Curve of Swiftest Descent

that, through experimentation (naturalia experimenta), he reached the conclusion

Galileo studied uniform acceleration by considering the motion on inclined

But Carlos was not to die.

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