Back in my school daze (sic intentional, this was in the 60's), I inadvertently signed up for a course in Cosmology. One of the baffling topics covered was the relationship between local intertial forces and the rest of the universe.
I seem to remember that one of the popular theories posited that the relationship between local inertial forces and other objects in the universe was linear; i.e., the magnitudes of local inertial forces on an object varied with the first power of the distances between that object and all other objects in the universe.
The net result was that the most distant objects in the universe had more influence on local intertial properties than the nearby objects.
Am I on track with this?
2006-08-21
23:22:39
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3 answers
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asked by
almintaka
4
in
Science & Mathematics
➔ Astronomy & Space
remember a thought experiment that suggested that other objects in the universe at least had some sort of effect on local intertial forces:
Let's say I stand up and begin spinning around. Blood begins to rush to my extremities, and the fluids in my inner ear let my brain know that the system is rotating.
Suddenly all things in the universe except me cease to exist. Am I still spinning? I should have some angular momentum left over from the old universe. But will my blood and inner ear fluids still react as though I'm spinning, or do I need other objects in the universe to tell these fluids that something is going on?
It seems that in this universe I can have an inertial frame of reference; but in a universe where I am the sole occupant, there is no inertial frame of reference to be had, or at least not one that I can perceive.
Or is this one of those unanswerable riddles?
2006-08-21
23:30:13 ·
update #1