The Lagrange multiplier: Work of the devil, or opiate of the masses?

If you haven’t had enough calculus to know what I’m talking about… be thankful. Roughly speaking, imagine taking a function of three or more variables and finding its extreme values with respect to a constraint represented by another function of three or more variables. Yep, that’s as clear as it gets. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Fortunately, there is a well-established method for solving these complex problems. It was discovered over two centuries ago by famed mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange, and has been refined through generations of use. It’s called guessing.

My course schedule right now includes both Calc III and Price Theory (i.e. economics with calculus applied to it to make it even more confusing and useless than before). Lagrange multipliers are a cornerstone of both. And yet they have decided that it would be better to teach them in irreconcilably different ways.

I foolishly thought that taking two calculus-intensive courses at once would be a good idea. I even thought it would improve my calculus skills. Instead, I am left more confused. Furthermore, if I have to take one more partial derivative my head will explode (fortunately, I only have several dozen more to do tonight).

The limit of my sanity as calculus goes to infinity: 0.

Posted on February 13th, 2005 by Lee
Tagged: College, Economics