3 ms·
If you built an accelerometer using only components that feel the electric force, would you be able to detect the acceleration caused by the electrical force?
by ithkuil 2y ago
If you built an accelerometer using only components that feel the electric force, would you be able to detect the acceleration caused by the electrical force?
I.e. part of the reason gravity is fundamentally different is that it's universal: everything obeys it, including the trajectories of radiation.
This makes it functionally a different thing than every other force, since for all other forces you can build a tool that would measure acceleration because there is always something available to you that is not affected by that other force
- cryptonector 2y agoIt's so nice to see others asking the right questions. We can't feel gravity's pull in free-fall because it pulls on all of our accelerometers' atoms in the same way at the same time and with the same force and in the same direction. (Assuming the accelerometer is small enough to not be able to sense the tiny changes in the gravitational field due to the field being spherical and the inverse square law.)
- tsimionescu 2y agoIf this were true, then an accelerometer that shows 0 in free fall on Earth would show some value when it was in deep space.
- ithkuil 2y agoI don't understand. Why would it show an acceleration in deep space?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- cryptonector 2y agoThe accelerometers in our ears show the same acceleration when we're falling in diving airplane as when in orbit in deep space.