I have read the following with respect to Mach’s principle
“Many physicists today accept this principle. Applied to Newton’s water bucket, it says that the curvature of the water surface is due to its rotation relative to the distant stars and galaxies. This implies the existence of a force between two objects whenever there is a relative acceleration between them.”
What is this force? Is it gravity?
ZenBeam
February 28, 2003, 5:29pm
2
Here’s something to chew on, from Weinberg’s Gravitation and cosmology :
Newton and Mach came to different conclusions about the origin of inertia. Newton believed that inertial forces, such as centrifugal force, must arise from acceleration with respect to “absolute space,” whereas Mach argued that they were more likely caused by acceleration with respect to the mass of celestial bodies. The distinction is not one of metaphysics but of physics, for if Mach were right then a large mass could produce small changes in the inertial forces observed in its vicinity, whereas if Newton were right then no such effect could occur.
Actually, I think his example could be better, since the Earth is large enough that tides are noticable, but on a small asteroid, say, orbiting the Sun, the equations of physics are the same as in any inertial coordinate system.
Ok I can buy that because in free fall stuff follows a geodesic. But are you saying that Mach’s connection between the bucket and the fixed stars is gravitational? Or is it some other undefined connection?