A Geometric Representation of Inertial Process

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Scientific Paper
Title A Geometric Representation of Inertial Process
Author(s) David F Roscoe
Keywords inertial process, inertial mass, gravitational mass, collisions, massive particles
Published 1991
Journal Galilean Electrodynamics
Volume 2
Number 5
Pages 87-93

Abstract

This paper presents a study of "inertia" which is motivated by a simple argument showing that the concept of inertial mass is somehow prior to the concept of gravitational mass so that, ultimately, it might be expected that gravitational proces arises out of inertial process.      The analysis starts with an explicit recognition of the fact that Newton's Third "Law" only has lawlike content when used to describe particle dynamics involving collisions between five or more massive particles, functioning purely as a definition of inertial mass in collisions involving four or less massive particles.      This recognition points the way to a relativistic generalization in which it is found that an appropriate consideration of the relationship between the concept of relativistic inertial mass (rest mass), and the law of four-momentum conservation, leads to a natural twofold partition of the class of all relativistic collision processes into those which are, in our own terminology, inertially-determined processes, and the rest.       It is found that the "inertially-determined process" can be given a geometric representation with a formal structure which suggests that gravitation might be a particular case of such a process and therefore, as argued in the first instance, a phenomenon of inertia.