NEWTON'S SECOND LAW UNDER MECHANISM-ONLY ELIMINATION

This paper applies a strict mechanism-only, elimination-by-necessity analysis to Newton’s second law to determine which elements physically enforce change. By restricting admissibility to proven mechanisms—force-mediated energy and momentum exchange with reciprocal back-reaction—the analysis tests whether mass and acceleration themselves act as enforcing agents. Removing mass and acceleration as causal attributions while retaining all enforcing interactions leaves physical evolution invariant. The paper establishes by logical necessity that force exchange alone enforces change, and that mass and acceleration function as non-enforcing descriptors summarizing interaction outcomes rather than physical drivers.