Talk:Monogenic system

Toward a less technical definition
I was trying to find a less technical definition. The problem appears to be that monogenic is just a term grafted onto a mathematical circumstance, and has little independent reality.

Lanczos (1986, p. 30) calls applied forces of this kind monogenic (‘monogenic’ for ‘single origin’) as against polygenic. Goldstein et al (2002) follow him; and I shall also adopt these terms. The Variational Principles of Mechanics, Cornelius Lanczos, page 30:
 * Between Laws and Models: Some Philosophical Morals of Lagrangian Mechanics, page 43

It seems desirable to have a distinctive name for forces which are derivable from a scalar quantity, irrespective of whether they are conservative or not. This book adopts the name "monogenic" (which means "single-generated") as a distinguishing name for this category of forces ... [others are] "polygenic".

&mdash; MaxEnt 00:53, 25 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Monogenic is a synonym for monic e.g. a monic polynomial. Mathematicians like the word, Lanczos probably picked it up from them. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 02:54, 19 November 2020 (UTC)