https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach%27s_principle
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Science
Scientastic — 3 months ago(December 05, 2025 03:28 PM)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach's_principle
Inertia and rotation:
The principle can be illustrated by considering rotation. The principle states that if you are in a rotating room, the inertia you feel (like the centrifugal force pushing you outward) is a result of your motion relative to the distant stars, not an absolute motion in space. If the entire universe, including the room and the stars, rotated together, you would not be able to tell that you were rotating.
Influence on general relativity:
Mach's principle was a key philosophical and conceptual foundation for Einstein, who wanted to eliminate absolute space from his theories. Einstein's theory of general relativity incorporates this idea by showing that the curvature of spacetime—which dictates how objects move—is determined by the mass and energy of all matter in the universe.
Alternative formulations and challenges:
Because Mach's principle is a concept rather than a strict mathematical law, it has many different formulations. While general relativity was inspired by it, some analyses suggest that it doesn't fully capture the principle's core idea, and that local inertial measurements in general relativity might not depend on the distant universe in the way Mach proposed