Advances in Astrophysics

Download PDF (289.4 KB) PP. 47 - 53 Pub. Date: May 1, 2016

DOI: 10.22606/adap.2016.11004

• Robert L. Shuler^*
  NASA Johnson Space Center/EV5, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, TX 77058

In the 1960s experiments investigating anisotropy of inertia relative to solar or galactic mass centers using the Mössbauer effect obtained negative results. Both sides of a debate over Mach’s Principle claimed the result was what should be expected. However in light of earlier comments by Einstein on the relativity of inertia to masses, Brans and Dicke felt a revised theory of gravity would better incorporate Mach’s Principle. We present a new view that the old experiment assumed, incorrectly, that Mach’s Principle affects only time dilation, which would violate the Equivalence Principle, and that the results were a predictable coordinate artifact. Using a special formalism of Distant Inertial and Spatially Homogeneous coordinates we give a plausible analysis that radial spatial distortion in a gravitational field is also related to Mach’s Principle and embodies the expected anisotropy while keeping equivalence locally intact. This leads to a view of momentum interactions via the space-time field that invites further analysis. Also, since Mach’s principle seems to be related to both time and spatial curvature, we briefly discuss whether it could be used as a postulate basis for space-time and how this might affect experiments designed to detect or exclude matter-coupled fields.

NASA Johnson Space Center/EV5, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, TX 77058

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