Harokopos E.
Description:
Laws of motion are derived based on power rather than on force. I show how power extends the law of inertia to include curvilinear motion and I also show that the law of action-reaction can be expressed in terms of the mutual time rate of change of kinetic energies instead of mutual forces. I then compare the laws of motion based on power to Newton’s Laws of Motion and I investigate the relation of power to Leibniz’s notion of vis viva. I also discuss briefly how the metaphysics of power as the cause of motion can be grounded in a modern version of occasionalism for the purpose of establishing an alternative foundation of mechanics. The laws of motion derived in this paper along with the metaphysical foundation proposed come in defense of the hypotheses that time emerges as an ordered progression of now and that gravitation is the effect of energy transfer between an unobservable substance and all matter in the Universe.