Article ID: CBB462268539

Hertz's Mechanics and a unitary notion of force (2021)

unapi

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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Authors & Contributors
Stan, Marius
Lützen, Jesper
Brading, Katherine
Sylla, Edith Dudley
Shea, William R.
Schiefsky, Mark J.
Journals
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Archive for History of Exact Sciences
Revue d'Histoire des Sciences
Physis: Rivista Internazionale di Storia della Scienza
Physics in Perspective
Perspectives on Science
Publishers
Oxford University Press
Concepts
Physics
Mechanics
Motion (physical)
Forces
Natural laws
Dynamics
People
Hertz, Heinrich Rudolph
Newton, Isaac
Mach, Ernst
Descartes, René
Bradwardine, Thomas
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
Time Periods
19th century
17th century
Medieval
20th century, early
18th century
Ancient
Places
Greece
Germany
France
Europe
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