Main Entry: Ham·il·to·ni·an

Pronunciation: \ˌha-məl-ˈtō-nē-ən\

Function: noun

Etymology: Sir William Hamilton †1865 Irish mathematician

Date: 1926

: a function that is used to describe a dynamic system (as the motion of a particle) in terms of components of momentum and coordinates of space and time and that is equal to the total energy of the system when time is not explicitly part of the function — compare lagrangian