On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 7:46 PM, James Bowery <[email protected]> wrote:
> http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0611167.pdf > > I draw your attention, in particular to the equation: > > *p* = ยต*v* + q*A* > > This is old and accepted physics. However, the q*A* term is addition to > Newton's 2nd law, is it not? > > No, but it saves Newton's third law from this apparent violation: The action of accelerating a charged body in a plane perpendicular to a magnetic field results in a reaction which is equal in magnitude but *perpendicular* to the action. > Moreover, it appears to be dynamic. A number of changing physical > quantities can affect it and not just slightly either. > > There seems to be a psychological problem involving *A*. People keep > making noises like it is "just a computational device -- not an actual > physical quantity". It is this psychological problem that fascinates me. > As the late Tom Etter alluded in the title of his Physics Essays paper > "Process, > System, Causality and Quantum Mechanics: A Psychoanalysis of Animal > Faith<http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9808011>" > the analysis we should be doing may be more psychological than physical. > > Here are some preliminary thoughts: > > In physics there seem to be dimensions that crop up in interesting ways -- > two of which are "action" and "information", with "information" related to > measurement. Action, unless there is some good way to interpret it in > terms of information, seems to be more immediately pertinent. Here's a > quote from the William O. Davis article "The Fourth Law of > Motion"<http://www.rexresearch.com/dean/davis4.htm>that hooked me on "action" > as a proximate key: > > What form should the Equation of Motion now take if we assume a force > proportional to the surge as well as a force proportional to acceleration? > The simplest assumption, and one which seems to be supported by preliminary > data, is that the new force is additive, in the same way that forces due to > viscous drag and displacement are additive. In other words, we now write > the equation of Motion: > > F = Ma + Aa(superdot) (5) > > Where A is a new term which we have labeled 'intractance' and which has > units of mass-seconds. Because the solutions of the equation in some cases > yield the ratio A/M as the critical action time (CAT) of the system, we > have in those cases assumed that the intractance is the product of the mass > and the CAT: > > A = DM (6) > > Let us now see how this equation of motion can be used to analyze and > predict the anomalous behavior of a simple system. Starting transients > normally are considered only in connection with the beginning or the end of > a motion and hence are accorded no particular attention. However, there are > certain types of cyclic motion where the transient behavior is continuous, > or repetitive and we will see later that even certain single transients may > have critical importance in understanding natural events. > > > Note that Davis's "A" has dimensions of mass*time. Dimensional analysis > tells us that this can be viewed as action if we convert mass to energy so > that instead of mass*time we have energy*time. > > I'll leave my comments about "Davis Mechanics" there for the moment since > this special-relativisitc unity between "intractance" and action seems to > me to be a lot to digest. > Lots of good stuff in the Davis Article. Maybe if Newton contemplated silly putty instead of canon balls he might have proposed a similar second law. Harry
