Dihymo comments on Mach's Principle: Anti-Epiphenomenal Physics - Less Wrong

18 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 24 May 2008 05:01AM

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Comment author: Dihymo 02 June 2008 01:49:31AM 1 point [-]

Centrifugal is running away from the center. Centripetal is the wrong name for it. It's just the instantaneous tangent force.

Mach is wrong because physics only obeys instantaneous velocity. Changes in velocity produces/implies forces. Acceleration (rotation) causes all sorts of funk. Acceleration that isn't a rotation could work alright.

The only way you could argue is in a perpendicular way to Einstein. It is true that were the center of rotation the Earth, then the Universe rotating around the Earth (Earth included by its own rotation), then if you were the only one not cosmically superglued to the Universe then it's no different from you going for a run around the Earth.

EXCEPT... if the universe and Earth were rotating, you wouldn't need to move your legs while the Earth slipped by right under you.