Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T21:21:39.159Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Logical Impossibility of Collision

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

A. David Kline  and
Carl A. Matheson
A. David Kline
Affiliation:
Iowa State University Of Science And Technology
Carl A. Matheson
Affiliation:
Iowa State University Of Science And Technology
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Absolutely no one still believes that every physical interactionconsists of material bodies bumping into each other. Those who have tried to work out a completely mechanistic physics have been unable to explain common phenomena like liquidity, gravitation and magnetism. In fact, there is great reason to doubt that such a physics could ever account for attractive forces in general.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 62 , Issue 242 , October 1987 , pp. 509 - 515
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See P. C. W., Davies, Space and Time in Modern Physics (Cambridge University Press, 1977), 137-138.Google Scholar

2 See C. A., Hooker, ‘The Metaphvsics of Science’, International Logic Review 5, (June 1974), 114.Google Scholar

3 Of course, closed objects would be able to interact with open objects. The union of (0,0-5) with [0-5,1] is both seamless and without overlap. There is no way for a closed object to meet another closed object without overlap. But, barring action at a distance, how would such objects be kept from colliding? Could our topological distinction provide an explanation for certain selective interactions in physics?

4 The same response can be given to those who make use of the infinitesimal which has been revitalized in the field of non-standard analysis. If objects rebound when they are an infinitesimal distance apart, how do they detect this distance?

5 We wish to thank our colleague, William Robinson, for his resistance.