Friday, December 15, 2017

Can an object accelerate to infinite speed in a finite time-interval in non-relativistic Newtonian mechanics?


Obviously this is impossible in relativity; however, if we ignore relativity and use only Newtonian mechanics, is this possible? How (or why not)?



Answer



The answer is yes in some unintersting senses: Take two gravitational attracting point particles and set them at rest. They will attract each other and their velocity will go to $\infty$ in finite time. Note this doesn't contradict conservation of energy since the gravitational potential energy is proportional to $-1/r$. This isn't so interesting since it's just telling you that things under gravity collide. But its technically important in dealing with the problem of gravitationally attracting bodies.


Now a more intersting question: Is there a situation where the speed of a particle goes to infinity without it just being a collision of two bodies?



Suprisingly, the answer to this question is yes, even in a very natural setting. The great example is given Xia in 1995 (Z. Xia, “The Existence of Noncollision Singularities in Newtonian Systems,” Annals Math. 135, 411-468, 1992). His example is five bodies gravitational interacting. With the right initial conditions one of the bodies can be made to oscillate faster with the frequency and amplitude going to infinity in finite amount of time.


Added


Here is an image. The four masses $M$ are paired into two binary systems which rotate in opposite directions. The little mass $m$ oscillates up and down faster. It's behavior becomes singular in finite time.


Five body setup


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