IN THE GRIP OF THE DISTANT UNIVERSE: THE SCIENCE OF INERTIA

by Peter Graneau, Neal Graneau

This is a book about the history of the science of inertia. Nobody denies the existence of the forces of inertia, but they are branded as "fictitious" because they do not fit smoothly into modern physics. Named by Kepler and given mathematical form by Newton, the force of inertia remains aloof because it has no obvious local cause. At the end of the 19th century, Ernst Mach bravely claimed that the inertia of an object was the result of its instantaneous interaction with all matter in the universe.Many other well-known physicists, including Aristotle, Galileo, Descartes and Einstein, are shown to have tackled this difficult subject. The book also concentrates on inertia research in the 20th century, taking place under the shadow of general relativity, which is seen as uncomfortable with Mach's principle. A Newtonian paradigm, based on action-at-a-distance forces, is discussed throughout the book, allowing the revival of Mach's principle as the only coherent explanation of the inertia forces which play such an important role in the laboratory and in the cosmos.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2006

Reviews

[Eric Amidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Newton's Bucket: Imagine you're in space holding a container with some water in it. If you spin the container, the water inside gets pressed against the walls of the container. Based on Relativity, if you hold the container steady and spin the whole universe around it in the opposite direction, the water should get pressed against the walls too, because these two scenarios are identical. So, does that mean that the inertia of the water comes from the whole universe and all those distant stars? (Mach, the genius, says "You bet!") ... But wait, those distant stars are millions of light years away, so any influence they would have on our inertia here would've taken millions of years to get here. How's that possible? The answers is... read the book!