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It's incomplete not by Godel, it's incomplete because Newtonian mechanics doesn't even attempt to describe most forces. It describes what forces are and how the
by tgb 10y ago
It's incomplete not by Godel, it's incomplete because Newtonian mechanics doesn't even attempt to describe most forces. It describes what forces are and how they act, but then it is left up to the reader to experimentally determine what forces there are in the universe. The only specified forces are gravitational.
- lisper 10y agoThat's not quite true. The third law (every action has an equal and opposite reaction) places hard constraints on what forces are possible. For example, if there is an apple resting on the table in front of me I can observe that it is not accelerating despite being in a gravitational field. I can deduce therefore that something must be exerting an upward force to counter the force of gravity, and that it's probably the table. Of course, Newton doesn't let me prove it's the table. It could be, for example, an apple-suspending demon which only acts in the presence of tables (and other solid objects). Newton does not allow me to eliminate that possibility (but Occam does).
- Koshkin 10y ago> doesn't even attempt to describe most forces Well, in a way it does, as long as these forces are "conservative", which includes gravitational field that you mentioned as well as (static) electric field. On the other hand, you are correct, it is not a goal of classical mechanics as a mathematical theory to describe any specific physical force in particular. In that sense it can be seen as "incomplete" - as a physical theory. But classical mechanics as a (modern) physical theory is not only "incomplete", it is also plain "wrong"! (But that is a topic for another time, perhaps.)