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JUSTIN A. KNIGHT
I: Culture Shock
Frank Wilczek
In all methods and systems
W hen I was a student, the subject
that gave me the most trouble
was classical mechanics. That always
which involve the idea of force
there is a leaven of artificial-
course, we know that none of that is
quite true.
Newton’s third law states that for
struck me as peculiar, because I had ity. . . . there is no necessity for every action there’s an equal and op-
no trouble learning more advanced the introduction of the word posite reaction. Also, we generally as-
subjects, which were supposed to be “force” nor of the sense-sug- sume that forces do not depend on ve-
harder. Now I think I’ve figured it out. gested ideas on which it was locity. Neither of those assumptions is
It was a case of culture shock. Coming originally based.1 quite true either; for example, they
from mathematics, I was expecting an Particularly striking, since it is so fail for magnetic forces between
algorithm. Instead I encountered characteristic and so over-the-top, is charged particles.
something quite different—a sort of what Bertrand Russell had to say in When most textbooks come to dis-
culture, in fact. Let me explain. his 1925 popularization of relativity cuss angular momentum, they intro-
for serious intellectuals, The ABC of duce a fourth law, that forces between
Problems with F ⊂ ma Relativity: bodies are directed along the line that
Newton’s second law of motion, connects them. It is introduced in
If people were to learn to con- order to “prove” the conservation of
F ⊂ ma, is the soul of classical me-
ceive the world in the new way, angular momentum. But this fourth
chanics. Like other souls, it is insub-
without the old notion of “force,” law isn’t true at all for molecular
stantial. The right-hand side is the it would alter not only their
product of two terms with profound forces.
physical imagination, but prob- Other assumptions get introduced
meanings. Acceleration is a purely ably also their morals and poli-
kinematical concept, defined in terms when we bring in forces of constraint,
tics. . . . In the Newtonian the- and friction.
of space and time. Mass quite directly ory of the solar system, the sun
reflects basic measurable properties I won’t belabor the point further.
seems like a monarch whose To anyone who reflects on it, it soon
of bodies (weights, recoil velocities). behests the planets have to
The left-hand side, on the other hand, becomes clear that F ⊂ ma by itself
obey. In the Einsteinian world does not provide an algorithm for
has no independent meaning. Yet there is more individualism and
clearly Newton’s second law is full of constructing the mechanics of the
less government than in the world. The equation is more like a
meaning, by the highest standard: It Newtonian.2 common language, in which different
proves itself useful in demanding sit-
The 14th chapter of Russell’s book useful insights about the mechanics
uations. Splendid, unlikely looking
is entitled “The Abolition of Force.” of the world can be expressed. To put
bridges, like the Erasmus Bridge
(known as the Swan of Rotterdam), do If F ⊂ ma is formally empty, micro- it another way, there is a whole cul-
scopically obscure, and maybe even ture involved in the interpretation of
bear their loads; spacecraft do reach the symbols. When we learn me-
morally suspect, what’s the source of
Saturn. chanics, we have to see lots of worked
its undeniable power?
The paradox deepens when we con- examples to grasp properly what
sider force from the perspective of The culture of force force really means. It is not just a
modern physics. In fact, the concept of To track that source down, let’s con- matter of building up skill by prac-
force is conspicuously absent from our sider how the formula gets used. tice; rather, we are imbibing a tacit
most advanced formulations of the A popular class of problems speci- culture of working assumptions.
basic laws. It doesn’t appear in fies a force and asks about the motion, Failure to appreciate this is what got
Schrödinger’s equation, or in any rea- or vice versa. These problems look like me in trouble.
sonable formulation of quantum field physics, but they are exercises in dif- The historical development of me-
theory, or in the foundations of gen- ferential equations and geometry, chanics reflected a similar learning
eral relativity. Astute observers com- thinly disguised. To make contact process. Isaac Newton scored his
mented on this trend to eliminate with physical reality, we have to make greatest and most complete success in
force even before the emergence of rel- assertions about the forces that actu- planetary astronomy, when he discov-
ativity and quantum mechanics. ally occur in the world. All kinds of as- ered that a single force of quite a sim-
In his 1895 Dynamics, the promi- sumptions get snuck in, often tacitly. ple form dominates the story. His at-
nent physicist Peter G. Tait, who was The zeroth law of motion, so basic tempts to describe the mechanics of
a close friend and collaborator of Lord to classical mechanics that Newton extended bodies and fluids in the sec-
Kelvin and James Clerk Maxwell, did not spell it out explicitly, is that ond book of The Principia3 were path
wrote mass is conserved. The mass of a body breaking but not definitive, and he
is supposed to be independent of its hardly touched the more practical
Frank Wilczek is the Herman Fesh- velocity and of any forces imposed on side of mechanics. Later physicists
bach Professor of Physics at the it; also total mass is neither created and mathematicians including no-
Massachusetts Institute of Technology nor destroyed, but only redistributed, tably Jean d’Alembert (constraint
in Cambridge. when bodies interact. Nowadays, of and contact forces), Charles Coulomb