Contention:
I personnaly feel that Machs principle is probably our most important and yet ignored principle. If we understand that Mach was essentially describing a zero dimensional universe it changes our view of reality and what we observe.

To me it means that mass is a part of all other mass and that inertia is due to the drag that all other masses provide on a mass's change in state.

The amount of Change/ movement/ time, possible is limited by this universal drag.

care to discuss?

link:
http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Machs+principle

So,

Mach. It dosen't have any quantitative basis that I know of (no equations). I found a group that was trying to test it:

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/bpp/pdf/Cramer-JPC.pdf

Don't know anything else beyond that. Would seem to be a very cool thing if proven to be true.

Mach's principle (mäks) [for E. Mach Mach, Ernst (ĕrnst mäkh), 1838–1916, Austrian physicist and philosopher, b. Moravia. He taught (1864–67) mathematics at Graz and later, until his retirement in 1901, was professor of physics at Prague and Vienna.

Machs, assertion that the inertial effects of mass are not innate in a body, but arise from its relation to the totality of all other masses, i.e., to the universe as a whole. Thus, the inertial forces experienced by a body in accelerated motion have the same physical origin as the gravitational forces it experiences near mass concentrations, namely the mass-energy field described by the general theory of relativity relativity, Inertial forces have a much longer range than gravitational forces, so the role of very distant matter becomes preponderant.

According to Mach's principle, a body experiences no inertial forces when it is at rest or in uniform motion with respect to the center of mass of the entire universe. When its motion is non-uniform (accelerated) with respect to the total mass of the universe, it experiences forces such as centrifugal force (see centripetal force and centrifugal force) and the Coriolis effect. Hence, the "local" behavior of matter is influenced by the "global" properties of the universe, i.e., those properties that describe the universe as a whole, which are studied in cosmology.

I thought for the sake of convenience I would paste in the above from the link suggested in the thread starter.
If proven as SL mentions it would provide an interesting conundrum in physical understanding.

The possible inference is that at least at an inertial level time is absolute.

The way I see it is that there is no separation between masses yet there appears to be so.

The very fact that inertia exists in all objects of mass in some form suggest that the universe has no distance when considering inertia. It allows for a possible understanding of the causality of time dilation and length contractions. IMO

Of course there is arguement that it is an effect of the gravitational relationship between masses, however if this relationship had dimension I would contend that inertia would become relative to time...as universal distances are so large.
It would also mean that events occuring 20 billion Lys away would have a delayed effect on inertia locally. So inertia would become a relative concept.

Is inertia a relative concept or an absolute concept?

Just thoughts......

is inertia a relative or absolute concept?
any one?

Contention:
I personnaly feel that Machs principle is probably our most important and yet ignored principle. If we understand that Mach was essentially describing a zero dimensional universe it changes our view of reality and what we observe.

To me it means that mass is a part of all other mass and that inertia is due to the drag that all other masses provide on a mass's change in state.

The amount of Change/ movement/ time, possible is limited by this universal drag.

care to discuss?

link:
http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Machs+principle
There is no rational means of proving mach's principle. It is philosphical garbage, have fun in your discussions. This isn't physics here, just because some "dig it.

Geistkiesel :cool: