Sunday 3 November 2019

newtonian mechanics - Can Newton's laws of motion be proved (mathematically or analytically) or are they just axioms?


Today I was watching Professor Walter Lewin's lecture on Newton's laws of motion. While defining Newton's first, second and third law he asked "Can Newton's laws of motion be proved?" and according to him the answer was NO!


He said that these laws are in agreement with nature and experiments follow these laws whenever done. You will find that these laws are always obeyed (to an extent). You can certainly say that a ball moving with constant velocity on a frictionless surface will never stop unless you apply some force on it, yet you cannot prove it.


My question is that if Newton's laws of motion can't be proved then what about those proofs which we do in high school (see this, this)?


I tried to get the answer from previously asked question on this site but unfortunately none of the answers are what I am hoping to get. Finally, the question I'm asking is: Can Newton's laws of motion be proved?




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