Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1977

Penciling in a notebook

July 10, 1950

Original is in item 1975.

Speculation on mass being proportionate to velocity:

A dyne, as such, is only a potential force. Without motion it has no inertia. With motion it has inertia, therefore inertial mass. And its inertial mass is proportionate to its rate of motion — its velocity.

A dyne-centimeter-second, then, is a unit of inertia; also it is one unit of inertial mass. If its velocity is 2 centimeters per second, then it will have 2 units of inertial mass. Two dynes would be two potentials of inertia. Hence two dynes with one cm-sec velocity would have two mass units. So mass (inertial) is a potential force times a rate of motion.

M = force x motion/time. This when extended through successive units of time — multiplied by time — becomes that quantity of inertia or of mass, or, shall we say, Action — as a Quantity of Action.