I was wondering if Lagrange was the first to use generalized coordinates as defined by their wikipedia article.
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$\begingroup$ You should probably copy that definition here for it to be easily visible for everyone. $\endgroup$ – gktscrk Jul 27 '20 at 21:09
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1$\begingroup$ Depends. The angle coordinate for the pendulum used by Newton et al., or Euler's angles for a rigid body were what came to be derived as generalized coordinates. Lagrange was first to conceptualize them as such in a general variational framework. $\endgroup$ – Conifold Jul 27 '20 at 22:02
