Thinking this would be obvious, I was trying to prove the Galilean invariance of Newton's second law of motion, but I failed. This is what I've got so far:
If we define a world line in Galilean space-time R4 as the following curve ˉw:I⊂R→R4:t↦(t,ˉx(t))
where R3⊂R4 Euclidean, then the acceleration is given by
ˉa:I⊂R→R4:t↦d2ˉw(t)dt2=(0,d2ˉx(t)dt2)≡(0,˜a(t))
where ˜a the classical acceleration and the force field that causes the acceleration
ˉF:R4→R4:ˉw(t)↦mˉa(t)=(0,m˜a(t))
So if Newton's second law of motion is written as ˉF(ˉw(t))=mˉa(t) then a Galilean transformation causes ˉF=GˉF′ and ˉa=Gˉa′ since they both live in R4. Therefore ˉF(ˉw(t))=mˉa(t)
However ˉa doesn't transform like ˉa=Gˉa′
A general Galilean transformation G in R4 is given by t=t′+tt
The relation between velocity and acceleration before and after a Galilean transformation is given by ˉv(t)=dˉw(t)dt=dˉw(t)dt′dt′dt=dˉw(t)dt′=(1,Rdˉx′dt′+ˉu)
This is not the same as ˉa=Gˉa′ because
ˉa(t)=Gˉa′(t′)
So the acceleration of a world line transforms not with G but with the linear part of G, meaning that the translation part must be zero: (tt,ˉtˉx)=ˉ0.
Can someone help me out of this mess?
Edit: Let me try again, this time forgetting that we're talking about forces and just consider a 3D vector field. Of course Galilean space-time is still 4-dimensional and a general Galilean transformation G in R4 is still given by t=t′+tt
Suppose now that we define a 3D vector field on a world line as ˉF:C⊂R4→R3:ˉw(t)↦m˜a(t)
The problem I'm having is that one says that "Newton's second law of motion is Galilean invariant". This implies that it is invariant, regardless the nature of the force. So if we make the nature of the force abstract, we can just forget that we're talking about force and consider a 3D vector field. Then everything boils down to showing that the definition has the same form in all inertial frames, which it has as shown above. Is this a valid point of view?
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