Schwarzschild and Birkhoff a la Weyl

We provide a simple derivation of the Schwarzschild solution in General Relativity, generalizing an early approach by Weyl, to include Birkhoff’s theorem: constancy of the mass; its deeper, Hamiltonian, basis is also given. Our procedure is illustrated by a parallel derivation of the Coulomb field and constancy of electric charge, in electrodynamics.