Hertz's Mechanics and a unitary notion of force |
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| Authors: | Joshua Eisenthal |
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| Affiliation: | Research Assistant Professor of Philosophy, California Institute of Technology, Caltech M/C 20-7, 1200 East California Blvd, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA;University of Sydney, Australia;Logic and Philosophy of Science, School of Social Sciences, UC Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92697-5100, USA;University of Cincinnati, Philosophy Department, PO BOX 210374, Cincinnati OH 45221, USA;Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, 2109, Australia;Department of Philosophy, University of South Florida, FAO 226, 4202 E. Fowler Avenue, Tampa, FL, 33620, USA |
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| Abstract: | Heinrich Hertz dedicated the last four years of his life to a systematic reformulation of mechanics. One of the main issues that troubled Hertz in the customary formulation of mechanics was a ‘logical obscurity’ in the notion of force. However, it is unclear what this logical obscurity was, hence it is unclear how Hertz took himself to have avoided it.In this paper, I argue that a subtle ambiguity in Newton's original laws of motion lay at the basis of Hertz's concerns; an ambiguity which led to the development of two slightly different notions of force. I then show how Hertz avoided this ambiguity by deriving a unitary notion of force, thus dispelling the obscurity that lurked in the customary representation of mechanics. |
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| Keywords: | Hertz Principles Mechanics Force Thomson Tait |
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