Nonconservation of energy and loss of determinism. II: Colliding with an open set (Q2268403)

The paper is a continuation of [Found. Phys. 39, No. 8, 937--957 (2009; Zbl 1181.37051)]. There, a generalized version of Pérez Laraudogoitia's system of an actually infinite system of balls, in which the masses of the balls were not all equal, was analyzed. The conclusion was that, for this system, the laws of mechanics (classical or relativistic) do not in general lead to conservation of energy-momentum, nor to determinism. It was also shown that the actually infinite system does share with finite systems the property of time-reversal invariance. In the present paper, it is shown that an actual infinity of colliding balls can be in a configuration in which the laws of mechanics lead to logical inconsistency. It is argued that one should therefore limit the domain of these laws to a finite, or only a potentially infinite number of elements. With this restriction indeterminism, energy nonconservation and other pathologies no longer occur. A numerical analysis of finite systems of colliding balls is given, and the asymptotic behaviour that corresponds to the potentially infinite system is inferred.