4 ms·
Inertia is not a property intrinsic to an object but depends upon all the mass in the universe. That quote from the article really crystallized Mach's Principl
by rkagerer 9y ago
Inertia is not a property intrinsic to an object but depends upon all the mass in the universe.
That quote from the article really crystallized Mach's Principle for me. So continuing mikeash's great explanation... basically the rest of the universe is pushing the gyroscope into its stable position?
- goatlover 9y agoBut if so, we don't know how the universe does that, and relativity has failed to settle the matter so far. That's what I got from the article.
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoDon't rely much on Mach's Principle. It's a philosophical statement with exactly zero experimental evidence. General Relativity would say somewhat the same thing, but in a very different form, with different results. GR would say that it depends on the geometry of the local spacetime, which, yes, does depend on all the mass in the universe, but not in the way that Mach's Principle would lead you to expect. Note that GR, in contrast with Mach's Principle, does have experimental evidence.