Timeline for Is spacetime all that exists?
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| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:39 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| Sep 17, 2013 at 4:11 | comment | added | Zo the Relativist | I get what you're saying, but I don't see why 'the distant stars' couldn't just as easily be interpreted to mean 'the sphere at infinity' in a modern sense. It's just a different interpretation of the same basic idea, and I've seen John Archibald Wheeler write it down this way before.. | |
| Sep 17, 2013 at 3:48 | comment | added | user4552 | @JerrySchirmer: Of course, there's a version of Mach's principle, where you could argue that the inertia in the Schwarzschild spacetime is set by the asymptotic flatness of the solution I've never seen Mach's principle formulated in this way, and it doesn't seem reasonable to me. Mach's principle has to do with distant matter, not with asymptotic properties of empty space. I really don't think this is controversial. Re vagueness, I disagree, for the admittedly more subjective reasons given in my answer to physics.stackexchange.com/questions/5483/… . | |
| Sep 16, 2013 at 22:48 | comment | added | Zo the Relativist | Of course, there's a version of Mach's principle, where you could argue that the inertia in the Schwarzschild spacetime is set by the asymptotic flatness of the solution, as is also the case inside a spinning thin shell of mass. The problem with Mach's principle is that it's vague enough that it can never really be true or false (or at least, you can motivate a "Mach's principle" that is inspired enough by GR that it is consistent). I wish people would stop teaching it, irrespecitvely. It's more misleading than it is instructive. | |
| Sep 16, 2013 at 19:21 | history | answered | user4552 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |