Re: [Phys-l] inertial +- gravitational mass

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@mindspring.com>]

At 14:09  -0500 11/20/06, John Denker wrote:
> On 11/20/2006 01:56 PM, Hugh Haskell wrote:
>
> >  and they are at least a little prepared for the additional
> >  complexity introduced by the fact that electrical mass is not the
> >  same as inertial mass.
> .         ^^^^^^^^
>
>
> I hope that's a typo;  previously the correspondence was
>   electrical mass <--> gravitational mass
> which made more sense.

I'm not sure I understand what the problem here is. What I was saying 
was that when they get to electricity, they find that the thing I 
have called "electrical mass," AKA charge, is not the equivalent of 
inertial mass, in contrast to the finding that gravitational mass 
*is* the equivalent (or at least apparently so) of inertial mass. I 
would say that electrical mass, and hence charge can be considered a 
cognate of gravitational mass, but no one would mistake them for the 
same thing, I hope.

> Typos aside, I'm not endorsing that approach, but /if/ you are wedded
> to that approach, here is a constructive suggestion:  Rather than
> introducing the idea of electrical mass, go the other way:
>
>     electricity                  gravity
>
>     inertial mass             inertial mass            (or just "mass")
>
>     electrical charge         gravitational charge
>                               (conventionally called
>                               gravitational mass)

I haven't given it much thought before, but I suspect that the usage 
of "gravitational charge" rather than "electrical mass" might be a 
superior terminology.

> This is more-nearly-standard terminology.  It is conventional in
> many areas to speak of the field-coupling parameter as a generalized
> charge, e.g. the "color charge" in quantum chromodynamics.

So it makes sense for me to use the "gravitational charge" 
terminology. I like that. But it doesn't change the arguments any.

Hugh
--

************************************************************
Hugh Haskell
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<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

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