Origin and demonstration of Newton's second law

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SUMMARY

The discussion centers on the historical origins and formulations of Newton's second law of motion, specifically comparing the equations $$\sum \vec{F}=m \vec{a}$$ and $$\sum \vec{F}= \dfrac{d\vec{p}}{dt}$$. It is established that the second equation, which relates force to momentum, is the one defined by Newton. The conversation also touches on the implications of this formulation, including its connection to Einstein's equation $$E=mc^{2}$$, and the potential geometric demonstrations used by Newton, although the exact derivation methods remain unclear.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of Newton's laws of motion
  • Familiarity with momentum and its mathematical representation
  • Basic knowledge of calculus, particularly derivatives
  • Introduction to Lagrangian mechanics and Euler-Lagrange equations
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  • Explore the derivation of Newton's second law from first principles
  • Study the relationship between momentum and force in classical mechanics
  • Investigate geometric proofs of Newton's laws
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fab13
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At high school, we saw without demonstration the fundamental principle of dynamics (2th Newton's law), i.e :

$$\sum \vec{F}=m \vec{a}\,\,\,\,\,\,\,\,\,eq(1)$$

after, at university, we saw another expression of this 2th Newton's law :

$$\sum \vec{F}= \dfrac{d\vec{p}}{dt}\,\,\,\,\, \,\,\,eq(2)$$ with ##\vec{p} = m\vec{v}## the momentum.

From an historical point of view, which one was defined by Newton, eq(1) or (eq2) ?

The eq(2) allows to deduce the famous equation ##E=mc^{2}## by considering ##dp=d(mv)=dm\,v +m\,dv## but I think that Newton could not have access to ##dm## and so defined rather ##m=\text{constant}##, didn't he ?

Does the origin of eq(1) and eq(2) come from physical experiments performed by Newton ?

Secondly, we can proove eq(2) thanks to Euler-Lagrange equation, taking ##p_{i}## the i-th momentum :

$$\dfrac{d}{dt}\bigg(\dfrac{ \partial L}{\partial \dot{q}_{i}}\bigg)=\dfrac{d\,p _{i}}{dt}=\sum F$$

Are there other ways to get the eq(2) ?

Finally, one told me that Newton has used geometric demonstration : Anyone could give me a link on these geometric prooves ?

Thanks for your help
 

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fab13 said:
From an historical point of view, which one was defined by Newton, eq(1) or (eq2) ?

The second.

fab13 said:
Does the origin of eq(1) and eq(2) come from physical experiments performed by Newton ?

We will never know. He didn't explain how he derived this equation.
 

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