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A paper, by philosopher of physics John Norton, describes a scenario in which a ball is placed at the apex of a perfectly smooth and frictionless dome. The paper argues that, according to Newton’s laws, the ball will spontaneously start rolling down the dome at some random time, without any external force acting on it. Norton’s claim suggests that Newtonian mechanics may not a deterministic theory or that there are multiple possible interpretations.

https://sites.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/DomePSA2006.pdf

  • catloaf@lemm.ee
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    20 hours ago

    It’s not spontaneously starting to move from rest. There was a force exerted on it to cause it to stop. That force will cause it to start moving in time-reversal.