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The historical development of classical stability concepts: Lagrange, Poisson and Lyapunov stability

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Abstract

A brief historical overview is given which discusses the development of classical stability concepts, starting in the seventeenth century and finally leading to the concept of Lyapunov stability at the beginning of the twentieth century. The aim of the paper is to find out how various scientists thought about stability and to which extent their work is related to the stability concepts bearing their names, i.e. Lagrange, Poisson and Lyapunov stability. To this end, excerpts of original texts are discussed in detail. Furthermore, the relationship between the various works is addressed.

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  1. Institute of Mechanical Systems, Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, ETH Zurich, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland

    Remco I. Leine

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Leine, R.I. The historical development of classical stability concepts: Lagrange, Poisson and Lyapunov stability. Nonlinear Dyn 59, 173–182 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11071-009-9530-z

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