Classical dynamics on triangleland

General relativity and quantum mechanics have both revealed the relativity of certain notions that were previously thought to be absolute. I clarify the precise sense in which these theories are relational, and I argue that the various aspects of relationality pertain to the same movement in the progress of physical theories.

General Relativity on closed spatial topologies can be derived, using a technique called "best-matching", as an evolving 3-geometry subject to constraints. These constraints can be thought of as a way of imposing temporal and spatial relationalism. The same type of constraints can be used in non-relativistic particle models to produce relational theories that suffer from the same Problem of Time as that encountered in General Relativity. As a result, these simple toy models a...

The goal of this essay is twofold. First, it provides a quick look at the foundations of modern relational mechanics by tracing its development from Julian Barbour and Bruno Bertotti's original ideas until present-day's pure shape dynamics. Secondly, it discusses the most appropriate metaphysics for pure shape dynamics, showing that relationalism is more of a nuanced thesis rather than an elusive one. The chapter ends with a brief assessment of the prospects of pure shape dyn...

Absolute space is eliminated from the body of mechanics by gauging translations and rotations in the Lagrangian of a classical system. The procedure implies the addition of compensating terms to the kinetic energy, in such a way that the resulting equations of motion are valid in any frame. The compensating terms provide inertial forces depending on the total momentum P, intrinsic angular momentum J and intrinsic inertia tensor I. Therefore, the privileged frames where Newton...

Arithmetic operations can be defined in various ways, even if one assumes commutativity and associativity of addition and multiplication, and distributivity of multiplication with respect to addition. In consequence, whenever one encounters `plus' or `times' one has certain freedom of interpreting this operation. This leads to some freedom in definitions of derivatives, integrals and, thus, practically all equations occurring in natural sciences. A change of realization of ar...

We analyze both the feasibility and reasonableness of a classical Euclidean Theory of Everything (TOE), which we understand as a TOE based on an Euclidean space and an absolute time over which deterministic models of particles and forces are built. The possible axiomatic complexity of a TOE in such a framework is considered and compared to the complexity of the assumptions underlying the Standard Model. Current approaches to relevant (for our purposes) reformulations of Speci...

We provide a synopsis of an effective approach to the problem of time in the semiclassical regime. The essential features of this new approach to evaluating relational quantum dynamics in constrained systems are illustrated by means of a simple toy model.

This article motivates and presents the scale relativistic approach to non-differentiability in mechanics and its relation to quantum mechanics. It stems from the scale relativity proposal to extend the principle of relativity to resolution-scale transformations, which leads to considering non-differentiable dynamical paths. We first define a complex scale-covariant time-differential operator and show that mechanics of non-differentiable paths is implemented in the same way a...

Geometric reduction of the Newtonian planar three-body problem is investigated in the framework of equivariant Riemannian geometry, which reduces the study of trajectories of three-body motions to the study of their moduli curves, that is, curves which record the change of size and shape, in the moduli space of oriented mass-triangles. The latter space is a Riemannian cone over the shape 2-sphere, and the shape curve is the image curve on this sphere. It is shown that the tim...

A triangular solution [Phys. Rev. D 107, 044005 (2023)] has recently been found to the planar circular three-body problem in the parametrized post-Newtonian (PPN) formalism, for which they focus on a class of fully conservative theories characterized by the Eddington-Robertson parameters $\beta$ and $\gamma$. The present paper extends the PPN triangular solution to quasi-elliptic motion, for which the shape of the triangular configuration changes with time at the PPN order. T...