Re: Newton's 3rd law? was Re: inertial forces (definition)

[Cliff Parker <cparker@EMPOWERING.COM>]

Leigh Palmer wrote:

>  David Bowman did a
> lovely job of answering Cliff's question, but it was a response to
> a bomb I had placed, and I was just a little disappointed to have
> missed the chance to defuse it myself.

Are you suggesting that reading your posts is equivalent to navigating a mine
field?

> Later
> field theorists invented the "photons" with which high school
> students seem to be more comfortable, though I can't imagine why.

Come on Leigh, marbles I understand invisible fields made of ???? now those
things are a little strange.

> In my treatment of introductory classical physics inertial forces
> are those which have (TWO) properties (or non-properties). (1)They have
> strength proportional to the mass of each body in the system and
> (2)they act on every body, and (3)they have no third law counterparts.

I have heard there are three kinds of physicists those who can count and those
who can't.  ; )
Seriously, I am having trouble with the idea of inertial force.  The current
discussion on that topic has not helped me to understand.  Perhaps I need to go
back and read more carefully.  Can you give some more detailed examples?  I
think that I understand how centrifugal force can be called an inertial force
(it is caused by an objects inertia and would have no third law counterpart).
But what about gravity?  I see where the gravitational force would fit #1 and
#2, but what is this about #3.  Are you saying that the force of gravity has no
gravitational counterpart because it acts at a distance?  If this is the case
then as what force would not act at a distance?  Didn't you say that if the idea
of a field is used the action at a distance problem is eliminate?

Cliff Parker