Re: Is spacetime curvature the source of inertia?


"Martin Hogbin" <goatREMOVETHIS123@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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:
: "Todd" <Todd@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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: > In the May issue of The American Journal of Physics there is an article
by
: > Ronald Newburgh with the title _Inertial forces, absolute space and
Mach's
: > principle: The genesis of relativity_. I'm intrigued by the last
sentence
: > of the abstract which reads:
: >
: > 'Einstein later abandoned Mach's principle and found the
: > source of inertia in the nonzero curvature of the space-time
: > metric, a fact that does not diminish the importance of Mach
: > in Einstein's early thinking.'
: >
: > Does GR really show that the source of inertia is the nonzero curvature
of
: > spacetime? Unfortunately, the author of the paper does not provide
support
: > for this statement nor does he give a reference. Does anyone here agree
: > with the author's statement? If so, can you elaborate or give a
reference?
: >
: > As I understand it, GR shows that the distribution of matter in the
universe
: > determines the spacetime metric. But no matter what the metric, at any
: > spacetime point you can always find a family of local inertial reference
: > frames in which the inertia of a marble, say, could be measured. (That
is,
: > you could measure the force required to accelerate the marble from rest
to 1
: > m/s over a time interval of 1 s.) The amount of inertia of the marble
would
: > be the same no matter which local inertial frame you choose. Changing
the
: > distribution of matter in the universe would not affect the inertia of
the
: > marble as measured in any local inertial frame. So, it seems to me that
the
: > amount of inertia of the marble is an intrinsic property of the marble
that
: > is not accounted for by GR nor is the amount of inertia connected in any
way
: > to the nonzero curvature of spacetime. Am I missing something here?
:
: I do not think

We all know that, why keep telling us?


.

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