Studies on the Motion of Viscous Flows~II 



The phenomenological description of the performance of classical mechani- 

 cal systems, reveals two general and mutually independent characteristics; 

 equilibrium and stability. The known propositions of classical mechanics refer 

 strictly to equilibrium, by invoking the condition that forces be instantaneously 

 in equilibrium everywhere and for all time in the system. This is their infor- 

 mation content. They report nothing of stability which is an equally general and 

 fundamental aspect of the behavior of classical mechanical systems. The laws 

 of mechanics give but limited expression to the principle of maximum uniform- 

 ity by asserting that the forces acting everywhere in a system sum vectorially 

 to zero in all directions. This restriction allows a multiplicity of directional 

 and spatial distributions in the magnitude of the forces impressed upon a body, 

 but without exercising a condition on preferred distributions which the stability 

 principle presented here, in fact, does. 



Concerning the Nature of Evolutionary Adaptation ■ '• 



The considerations noted above help demonstrate that force, equilibrium, 

 and stability are particular manifestations of an overriding tendency in nature 

 to increase a global measure of uniformity identified with the global structure 

 of the space-time manifold. This process is envisaged here as universal and 

 conditioned by the principle of maximum uniformity, with the following postu- 

 lates: that force is the instrument for increasing uniformity in nature, or what 

 is equivalent — the instrument for effecting reduction of global nonuniformity 

 existing in the space -time manifold; that all forces in nature emerge from these 

 global nonuniformities, and constantly act to reduce them; that forces are the 

 universal manifestations of nonuniformities in nature insofar as they are di- 

 rectly posited to sensation. 



Evolutionary adaptation is envisaged here as a universal aspect of all proc- 

 esses in nature; an aspect which reconciles constancy and change in all of their 

 ramifications in natural phenomena. The thrust of evolutionary adaptation, so 

 conceived, derives from the ultimate processes embedded in the space -time 

 manifold, which drive and structure the manifold by irreversible connections 

 that must necessarily exist between these ultimate processes and the manifold. 

 The irreversible connections are implied by the immutability of these ultimate 

 processes, called here the universals, as they are reflected in and revealed by 

 the 'Dimensional Universal Constants of Nature,' with which they are here 

 identified. 



The universal adaptive process described above has been conceptually 

 identified with and has emerged from a conceptual model of nature's space-time 

 manifold that is endowed with certain essentially ontological features inferred 

 from the dimensional universal constants (7). These ontological characteristics 

 were independently discerned in a concurrent study initiated in 1947, which is 

 based on Gauss's and Hertz's formulations of the principles of classical me- 

 chanics. Both Gauss and Hertz were motivated by a quest to understand the 

 nature of force by attempting to establish force on a strictly geometrical foun- 

 dation. This endeavor was initiated by Gauss in 1829 and culminated at the turn 

 of the century in Hertz's last and monumental work entitled "Principles Of Me- 

 chanics." In this profound and beautiful work Hertz formally constructs a 6N 



465 



