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[Phys-l] F and a and causation



I am hesitant to comment since I am not a physicist nor a physics teacher, but ...


It might be helpful to note that while there is a symmetry between the x,y,z components of acceleration and those of force, that in many cases there are different kinds of forces. So in a situation where gravitational and magnetic forces are both acting, from the z components of the two forces one can calculate the z acceleration, from the z acceleration you can derive the net z force, but not the magnetic force z component nor the gravitational force z component separately.


I don't know that this justifies saying that the force causes the acceleration, but it does seem to point to an assymmetry that might be the good rationale for the temptation to make the causal claim.)

(I suspect I have not articulated this quite properly, but perhaps someone can reformulate it more acceptably.)

Richard Grandy
Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences
Rice University
Houston TX USA