Determination of the Electromagnetic Lagrangian from a System of Poisson Brackets

Paul Bracken

Published 2006-07-30Version 1

The Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of electromagnetism are reviewed and the Maxwell equations are obtained from the Hamiltonian for a system of many electric charges. It is shown that three of the equations which were obtained from the Hamiltonian, namely the Lorentz force law and two Maxwell equations, can be obtained as well from a set of postulated Poisson brackets. It is shown how the results derived from these brackets can be used to reconstruct the original Lagrangian for the theory aided by some reasoning based on physical concepts.