Re: Inertial vs gravitational mass

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 17:51 -0700 1/21/03, Nathaniel Davis wrote:
> Why is inertial mass always equal to gravitational mass?
Like Cliff says, its a great questions and you are indeed fortunate
that it came up at all. I usually had to drag it out of my students.
Interestingly, as of this juncture we do not know why. I think this
is one of those unanswerable questions that all we can say is nobody
knows, it just is that way--a lucky accident, maybe. This was the
finding of the Eotvos experiment, done in the early years of the 20th
century, and the possibility that it might not have been true was the
cause of the excitement over the possible "fifth force" a few years
back. There may be some insights into this buried in general
relativity, but since GR is based on the postulate that gravitational
and inertial mass are the same thing, any insights might well end up
being tautological. David Bowman will probably have something
relevant to say about this.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

Never ask someone what computer they use. If they use a Mac, they
will tell you. If not, why embarrass them?
                       --Douglas Adams
******************************************************