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Re: Cause and Effect



Not to complicate this, but Rick's analysis points out the classical
logical problem of Newton's ideas in which two of the three quantities
are not well defined. Mach wrote much about this, and Hertz...the same
E&M guy wrote a form of mechanics in which he attempted to eliminate the
notion of force.
Helmholtz and Hertz influenced Wittgenstein who sought to remove the
logical inconsistencies in mathematics uncovered by Russell in the
beginning of the century.
You are all in good company.

By the way, my favorite version of N1 is "objects move with constant
velocity unless then don't"

cheers,

joe



On Fri, 20 Oct 2000, Rick Tarara wrote:

Question: A block sliding across a table top comes to rest. Why?

From the Denker Model of Motion:

1) The block decelerates due to kinetic frictional forces between the block
and the table.

2) The kinetic frictional force is caused by the deceleration of the block.

3) Therefore the block comes to rest because the block comes to rest!

;-) <---non-gratuitous emoticon.

Rick

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Richard W. Tarara
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Department of Chemistry & Physics
Saint Mary's College
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219-284-4664
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

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