Question

What are local laws? I was reading this line in a book...

Newtons second law is a local law. This means that it applies to a particle at a particular instant without taking into consideration any history of the particle or it's motion.

What does this mean in simpler terms?

Are their non local laws as well? Please explain with an example.
A) Local laws pertain to principles that are universally applicable to particles at a specific instant, regardless of their previous motion history.
B) Local laws only apply to particles within a small region of space and time, irrespective of their current state.
C) Local laws describe the behavior of particles considering their past trajectory and motion history.
D) Local laws have an impact on the motion of particles across vast distances in space.

Answer 1

Local laws in physics are principles that apply to the immediate behavior of objects, exemplified by Newton's second law, which relates force to mass and acceleration. Non-local laws involve effects over distance such as quantum entanglement.

Step-by-step explanation:

Local laws pertain to the behavior of particles and objects at a specific instance in time, without considering their history or past motion. In physics, a local law applies to phenomena under immediate observation and doesn't take into account any influence from an object's past trajectory or motion history. Newton's second law is an example of a local law; it states that the force acting on an object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by its acceleration (F = ma). This means that the force determines the instantaneous acceleration of an object, irrespective of its previous states of motion.

On the other hand, non-local laws in physics are less common but can involve correlations or effects that are not confined to a particular location and can occur over long distances. An example of this is quantum entanglement, where particles can remain connected so that the actions performed on one particle can instantaneously affect the other, regardless of the distance separating them.