Rosenfeld, Bergmann, and the Invention of Constrained Hamiltonian Dynamics

Significant progress in the invention of constrained Hamiltonian dynamics was made by Leon Rosenfeld in a paper he published in the Annalen der Physik in 1930. He applied his general formalism to general relativity with electrodynamical field and Dirac electron sources. His proposed Hamiltonian will be compared and contrasted with an independently developed precursor investigated by Peter Bergmann and collaborators in 1949-50.