Heinz Hanßmann Dynamics of Hamiltonian Systems (492K, PostScript) ABSTRACT. Hamiltonian systems are a class of dynamical systems which can be characterised by preservation of a symplectic form. This allows to write down the equations of motion in terms of a single function, the Hamiltonian function. They were conceived in the $19$th century to study physical systems varying from optics to frictionless mechanics in a unified way. This description turned out to be particularly efficient for symmetry reduction and perturbation analysis.