A Rational Cosmology: Continuous and Intermittent Motion

Essay XXXII

This is Essay XXXII of Mr. Stolyarov's series, "A Rational Cosmology," which seeks to present objective, absolute, rationally grounded views of terms such as universe, matter, volume, space, time, motion, sound, light, forces, fields, and even the higher-order concepts of life, consciousness, and volition. See the index of all the essays in "A Rational Cosmology" here.

Here, we shall address the distinction between continuous and discontinuous motion, as Newton's calculus provides the most direct investigation of the former of these.

If we were to define continuous motion, we would need to take into account the fact that, if continuous motion is the opposite of intermittent motion, it is motion not interrupted by periods of stasis between an entity's departure from and arrival at, respectively, the two points of reference selected by the observer.

If there are no periods of stasis involved in continuous motion, then, by extension, this must mean that, were we to select any number of particular combinations of spatiotemporal parameters pertaining to a continuously moving object, we would never see the correspondence of the same spatial parameters to different temporal parameters unless the object's motion entails passing through the same point several times, as would be characteristic of an object traveling in a loop, for example. In that case, if the number of times a continuously moving object passes through a given point C is n, we can never encounter more than n sets of the spatial coordinates of C plus some temporal coordinate, different for each set.

In contrast with continuous motion, were we to examine intermittent motion during which an object has stopped at point C, we could find any number of sets which each have the spatial coordinates of C plus some temporal coordinate, different for each set.