I'm trying to gain a more intuitive understand of the concept of an . When physicists speak of an infinitesimal quantity, if that basically the same as the first order term in a Taylor series expansion of a function they're analyzing?
Just as background, I should say I am a mathematics grad student who is trying to learn some physics. I've been reading "The Theoretical Minimum" by Susskind and Hrabovsky and on page 134, they introduce  transformations. Here's the first example they use:  Consider a particle moving in the x,y plane under the influence of a potential, $V$, which depends only on the radius, with Lagrangian:   $L=\frac{m}{2}(\dot{x}^2+\dot{y}^2)-V(x^2+y^2)$  This is clearly invariant under rotations:  $x \rightarrow x\cos \theta + y\sin \theta$  $y \rightarrow -x\sin \theta + y\cos \theta$  All well and good. Now they say "consider what happens ... when the angle $\theta$ is replaced by an infinitesimal angle $\delta$." Already I could say "What the heck is $\delta$ really?", but I'm willing to play along with my intuition. Since $\delta$ is infinitesimal, we work to first order and say   $\cos \delta=1$ and $\sin \delta= \delta$.  Plugging this into our rotation formulas above, we obtain:  $x \rightarrow x+y\delta$  $y \rightarrow y-x\delta$  By differentiating, we see that:  $\dot{x} \rightarrow \dot{x}+\dot{y}\delta$  $\dot{y} \rightarrow \dot{y}-\dot{x}\delta$  Plugging these into the Lagrangian and ignoring terms higher than first order, we see that the Lagrangian is invariant under this transformation.  My main problem with all of this is that I don't understand what the physical nature of an infinitesimal transformation actually is. All I got from the above was that if you do this formal calculation by following rules like "only work to first order in $\delta$," then the Lagrangian is invariant. This is in contrast to the case where we have an actual transformation, like a rotation, where there is no question about what is going on physically.  I would also like to know how all of this relates to rigorous mathematics. In mathematics, I can't recall ever using infinitesimals in an argument or calculation, so it would be useful if there was some way of formulating the above in terms of limits/ derivatives/ differential forms (for example). I sense a connection to Lie Algebras, as the infinitesimal version of the rotation is $(I+A)$ where $I$ is the identity matrix and $A$ is an element of the Lie Algebra of $SO(2)$.   Here are some questions whose answers I believe may be useful to me (feel free to answer some or all):  -What is an infinitesimal quantity like $\delta$ to the physicist?   -Why do physicists argue using infinitesimals rather than "standard" calculus?  -What is the physical meaning of infinitesimal transformation? How does it relate to Lie Algebras?   -Is there a rigorous theoretical apparatus for justifying the computations shown above?  -What is meant by the Lagrangian being invariant under infinitesimal transformations?  If any of the questions seem too vague, please say so. Thanks in advance for your insights!
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