Mach's Principle: From Newton's Bucket to Quantum Gravity

by Julian Barbour (Editor), H. Pfister (Editor)

This volume is a collection of scholarly articles on the Mach Principle, the impact that this theory has had since the end of the 19th century, and its role in helping Einstein formulate the doctrine of general relativity. 20th-century physics is concerned with the concepts of time, space, motion, inertia and gravity. The documentation on all of these makes this book a reference for those who are interested in the history of science and the theory of general relativity

Genres: Physics, Science

544 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1994

About the author

Julian Barbour (1937) is a British physicist with research interests in quantum gravity and the history of science.

Since receiving his PhD degree on the foundations of Einstein's general theory of relativity at the University of Cologne in 1968, Barbour has supported himself and his family without an academic position, working part-time as a translator. He has research interests in quantum gravity and the history of science.

Reviews

[Mike Lisanke · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a book about physics by physicists for physicists it was surprisingly readable. Still there are many esoteric subjects and terminology which are not explained and assumed the reader will just understand. I suppose if one explored the tree of references and used Internet searches to ask for explanations you may eventually be able to decide if a statement may hesitantly in the discussion of Mach's Principle forum was something one might consider worth their time (to do this). IMO, physics by physicists does not have to be written in the vernacular of the physicist.

[Francois Danis · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Mach's principle will find its solution very soon, this book is an important work to show the state of science at that time: Mach's principle is too simple, the surface of the Earth cannot be the inertial frame of reference (Friedlaender) so we don't repeat the experiment even if we consider the experiment as very good, etc.
A lot of interesting work is in German and many are translated in this book. It is a must if you are interested in Mach's principle.