- #1
runner108
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I'm doing some independent research and thinking mainly in psychology as such I don't have much of a physics background so I want to make sure the arguments I make that pertain to physics valid.
It's a fairly common lay person assumption that all 'change' is due to force. I orginally wanted to make this argument too but in teaching myself a few things I realized this is not so cut and dry. When one considers it fairly basically we see that motion can be forceless (consider two objects floating by each other in space). In this example, however, both objects can be said to be inertial observers. So we see then that all change (for an object) either takes place in an inertial or an accelerated frame of reference. A particle that is in an inertial path is moving in a straight line on its wordline whereas a particle under acceleration has a curved worldline (as far as I've been lead to understand).
So to say that force has a role in change makes sense but only so far as it is required to deviate a particle from its straight worldline. What is it then that moves a particle in a straight line on its worldline? It seems that movement here would be a product of momentum and momentum conservation is a result of shift symmetry which is a result of space-time continuity.
Therefore can I make an argument that 'continuous change' only requires continuity of space-time but to deviate from continuity requires force (in my own nomenclature rather than the official definitions of the things)
It's a fairly common lay person assumption that all 'change' is due to force. I orginally wanted to make this argument too but in teaching myself a few things I realized this is not so cut and dry. When one considers it fairly basically we see that motion can be forceless (consider two objects floating by each other in space). In this example, however, both objects can be said to be inertial observers. So we see then that all change (for an object) either takes place in an inertial or an accelerated frame of reference. A particle that is in an inertial path is moving in a straight line on its wordline whereas a particle under acceleration has a curved worldline (as far as I've been lead to understand).
So to say that force has a role in change makes sense but only so far as it is required to deviate a particle from its straight worldline. What is it then that moves a particle in a straight line on its worldline? It seems that movement here would be a product of momentum and momentum conservation is a result of shift symmetry which is a result of space-time continuity.
Therefore can I make an argument that 'continuous change' only requires continuity of space-time but to deviate from continuity requires force (in my own nomenclature rather than the official definitions of the things)