Occam's Razor as a formal basis for a physical theory

Abstract

We introduce the principle of Occam's Razor in a form that can be used as a basis for economical formulations of physics. This allows us to explain the general structure of the Lagrangian for a composite physical system, as well as some other artificial postulates behind the variational formulations of physical laws. As an example, we derive Hamilton's principle of stationary action together with the Lagrangians for the cases of Newtonian mechanics, relativistic mechanics and a relativistic particle in an external gravitational field.