A four-force preserving the particle's rest mass. For a massive particle, and in the mostly-minus convention imply . Thus constant mass is equivalent to orthogonality of the force and four-velocity. Energy transfer in a moving frame is allowed even though rest mass does not change.
A nonzero four-force cannot have all components constant in an inertial frame along an entire constant-mass trajectory. If , preserving for all proper times requires both and . The orthogonal complement of timelike is negative definite, forcing . A constant laboratory three-force or a four-force of constant invariant magnitude is a different, consistent condition.

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