Re: F before ma?

[John Denker <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

I said:

> "There is every reason to believe [F and ma] are
> simultaneous, and no reason to believe otherwise.  If anybody has
> theoretical or experimental evidence to the contrary, please let us
> know."

At 10:31 AM 10/15/00 +1100, Brian McInnes wrote:

> In the model we expect the unbalanced applied net force (John
> Clement's push) and the acceleration of the point particle or the
> rigid body to be simultaneous.
>
> However in the real world, where elastic forces come into play as
> existence of the unbalanced force is "communicated" to all parts of
> the non-rigid body, simultaneity is not obvious.

In the same vein at 05:21 PM 10/14/00 -0700, Bernard G. Cleyet & Nancy Ann
Seese wrote:
> Instantaneous is also limited by special relativity.

=========================

We're getting some pretty wild speculations here.

If the "ma" were not exactly contemporaneous with the "F", it would violate
conservation of momentum.

Special relativity complicates the accounting slightly, but still
conservation of momentum is required.

Again:  If anybody has theoretical or experimental evidence to the
contrary, please let us know.  Some semblance of a quantitative assertion
would be nice, such as "F precedes ma by ___ nanoseconds".