Re: A question (fwd)

[brian whatcott <inet@INTELLISYS.NET>]

> At 4/12/01 6:44:42 AM EDT, jpe@USNA.EDU wrote:

> << I would point out that "inertial mass" would still be there as it is "self
> aware" -- it doesn't need the interaction with any other object to be
> meaningful. >>

At 20:06 4/14/01 -0400, Bob Zannelli responded :

> My two cents worth. I think this point can be disputed. According to Mach's
> principal, inertia is the result of the interaction of the accelerated object
> and the rest of the Universe. If you accept the validity of this principal
> then in a Universe with just one object there is no inertia. However this
> principal is not accepted by everyone as being valid. Einstein accepted it
> for a time and Feynman tried to modify this concept using his and John
> Wheeler's absorber theory. However I don't believe he was ever completely
> successful in doing this.
>
> Bob Zannelli

Mach seems to have been a force in the primacy of experimental confirmation
of natural effects. One is reminded of the epithet: "If a husband whispers
to himself in the forest where no wife can hear, is he still wrong?".

 With just one particle in the universe, there is no wife to hear, certainly.
But Bob Sciamanda caught himself on the nonsensicality of solo effects
by recalling the concept of self force from charge.
 Perhaps Mach would have appreciated the idea of a schizophrenia of this
 kind, as he was also a psychologist.

 It's easy to consider a mass in two parts, connected by a ligature that can
rotate and extend. (come to think of it, this has something of the flavor of
the 'springs and masses' theoretical scaffolding of Maxwell's system of
equations which he scrupulously erased when the theory was complete).

Indeed, there is something rather special about the idea of a resonant twist
in a particle. This has the curious property of holding an initial orientation
'with respect to the distant stars' - to paraphrase an instance of Mach's
 principle.

 So perhaps Mach would ask; "If there are no distant stars,
 would a (contra)rotating particle hold an orientation against disturbance?"
I imagine a physical chemist might have something to say to this concept -
they have made great use of IR spectrometry (apparently) in identifying
characteristic kinematic modes of compounds hooked together with
resilient bonds.

Even if there are distant stars, there seems to be a difficulty in
considering the transition from a drifting particle with no preferred
orientation to a particle counter rotating with itself.
This immediately has a preferred orientation - and there is no time
for a messenger to communicate the fact to distant masses if such a
messenger were limited to c.

....but this is more, or far more, 'stream of consciousness' than
Bob Zannelli was bargaining for I dare say; so I will stop here.


brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>  Altus OK
                Eureka!