I had a question regarding the principle of intertia, specifically the part that starts that a body in uniform motion will remain in uniform motion if no force acts upon it.
I understand that this is an impossible scenario, but if we were to have a point particle of variable mass (Let's say the mass increases as a monotonic function of time as it goes on) moving at a constant speed in a straight line in vacuum. Would the changing mass have any any affect on the motion of the particle?
Taking force to be the time derivative of momentum it would seem that there must indeed be a force acting upon the ball, in the direction of movement, although this seems counterinuitive as I would have expected the magnitude of the velocity to only decrease as the mass increases if anything?
Could someone explain this situation and how to approach thinking about it, or provide a link to a pdf or website where it has already been discussed? What would happen if the mass function was discontinuous, like a step function, would the velocity skyrocket to infinity or receive a small bump and go straight to a higher velocity?
