Related papers: The 'Sears paradox'
The meaning of Lorentz contraction in special relativity and its connection with Bell's spaceships parable is discussed. The motion of Bell's spaceships is then compared with the accelerated motion of a rigid body. We have tried to write…
The 120-year old so-called Painleve paradox involves the loss of determinism in models of planar rigid bodies in point contact with a rigid surface, subject to Coulomb-like dry friction. The phenomenon occurs due to coupling between normal…
In applied mechanics Reye's law (1860) establishes, via energy arguments, that the mass of the debris produced by dry friction in the contact of rigid bodies is proportional to the work done by friction forces. This result has long been…
An extended body subject to external forces which exert zero net force and zero total torque in the rest frame, may experience a nonzero torque in another inertial frame, and nonetheless does not rotate. Long known as the Trouton-Noble or…
A solution of the n-body problem in R^d is a relative equilibrium if all of the mutual distance between the bodies are constant. In other words, the bodies undergo a rigid motion. Here we investigate the possibility of partially rigid…
A "circular orbital forcing" makes a chosen point on a rigid body follow a circular motion while the body spins freely around that point. We investigate this problem for the planar motion of a body subject to dry friction. We focus on the…
Special relativity is no longer a new revolutionary theory but a firmly established cornerstone of modern physics. The teaching of special relativity, however, still follows its presentation as it unfolded historically, trying to convince…
Machs principle and the principle of relativity have been discussed by H. I. Hartman and C. Nissim-Sabat in this journal. Several phenomena were said to violate the principle of relativity as applied to rotating motion. These claims have…
Non-commutativity of the Einstein velocity addition, in case of non-collinear velocities, seemingly gives rise to a conflict with reciprocity principle. However, Thomas rotation comes at a rescue and the paradox is avoided. It is shown that…
It is argued that the `perspectival change' of a physical object in special relativity may be given a natural dynamical explanation in terms of a change in the object under the action of certain forces in a rest properties-preserving way.
We consider the motion of a rigid body immersed in an ideal flow occupying the plane, with bounded initial vorticity. In that case there exists a unique corresponding solution which is global in time, in the spirit of the famous work by…
We study a novel approach for the existence of solutions to an incompressible fluid-rigid body interaction problem in three dimensions. Our approach introduces an iteration based on a sequence of related problems posed on domains with…
We determine the general form of the potential of the problem of motion of a rigid body about a fixed point, which allows the angular velocity to remain permanently in a principal plane of inertia of the body. Explicit solution of the…
Mechanical instabilities can be exploited to design innovative structures, able to change their shape in the presence of external stimuli. In this work, we derive a mathematical model of an elastic beam subjected to an axial force and…
The necessity and benefit of singular solutions in the study of physical systems is shown. By singular solutions we mean solutions that are not contained in the general solution of the system of equations that describes the dynamic system…
A rigid body, with an interior cavity entirely filled with a Navier-Stokes liquid, moves in absence of external torques relative to the center of mass of the coupled system body-liquid (inertial motions). The only steady-state motions…
When an inextensible elastic rod is 'injected' through a sliding sleeve against a fixed constraint, configurational forces are developed, deeply influencing the mechanical response. This effect, which is a consequence of the change in…
We consider the motion of several solids in a bounded cavity filled with a perfect incompressible fluid, in two dimensions. The solids move according to Newton's law, under the influence of the fluid's pressure, and the fluid dynamics is…
An elastic rod, straight in its undeformed state, has a mass attached at one end and a variable length, due to a constraint at the other end by a frictionless sliding sleeve. The constraint is arranged with the sliding direction parallel to…
We study forced oscillations of a rod with a body attached to its free end so that the motion of a system is described by two sets of equations, one of integer and the other of the fractional order. To the constitutive equation we associate…