Jethro Linley Extremised Action Functionals On Manifolds (284K, PDF) ABSTRACT. In this brief note we consider the construction of action functionals on differentiable manifolds and discuss the validity of available variational methods that might be used for their extremisation. We describe the 1-dimensional case only and note that consideration of the various maps required to define a Lagrangian results in extremum equations different to the Euler-Lagrange equations.