Maching Einstein

A typo in the headline? I don't think so. I'm referring to Mach's Principle. The most general idea of it is (from the wiki) "Local physical laws are determined by the large-scale structure of the universe." Einstein based his general relativity on such a concept.

As engineers (I assume most of you reading this are) you are familiar with F=ma and F=G*(m1*m2/r^2). Now the very interesting thing is that inertial mass and gravitational mass appear to be identical (as close as we can measure). There are theories about why this is so (Mach's Conjecture/Principle) but we have no proof.

So what is Mach's Conjecture? Simply that the inertia of any particular mass is a function of all the mass in the universe.

Paul March is doing experiments to see if reality corresponds to theory. He has this to say:

"Dr. Woodward has been doing M-E “proof of principle” tests since ~1990 and I started in 2002. In short, the M-E derivation indicates that when a capacitor dielectric is subjected to a sinusoidal time rate of change of stored energy while simultaneously being subjected to a bulk acceleration relative to the distant stars, that a mass density variation of the dielectric should be expressed at 2X the drive frequency of the dE/dt energy flux, AKA electrical power. And its magnitude should be proportional to the product of the cube of the applied voltage times the applied bulk acceleration with all other controlling parameters held constant.

The latest Woodward run M-E proof of principle test series was expanded in the 2008 to 2009 time period to include the upgraded Mark-III rotary test rig that could supply a variable bulk centripetal gee loading to the excited dielectric cap array that went from zero up to over 800 gees (~7,900 m/sec^2) at 3600 RPM. A ring of eight high-k (e-r=~5,000) ceramic dielectric caps that were subjected to this variable acceleration were then excited at 40 kHz with 2.0, 4.0, & 6.0 kV-peak voltages while the 2nd harmonic (80 kHz) mass density fluctuations were measured using an instrumentation system that included an FFT time to frequency domain measurement scope that displayed the magnitudes of the generated fundamental and harmonic signals. We found a mass density variation signal present at 80 kHz that was proportional to the applied gee loading, varied with the cube of the applied voltage and subtracted from the mundane electrostrictive signal that was also suppose to be expressed at this 80 kHz frequency but at 180 degrees out of phase with the dm signal. Data is available to all who are interested."

The difficulty wit his experiments is that he was using a piezoelectric accelerometer. A set up which is notoriously prone to EMI interference with the signals. I suggested that Mr. March use a spring of some sort and a laser interferometer for measurements as that would be much less prone to EMI and confounding signals.

Mr March replied: "... from your description of the spring/laser interferometer, it appears enticing if I can afford it."

Of course there is lots more on the subject. Here is a short introductory paper by James F. Woodward

And some books on the subject might be in order:

Mach's Principle and the Origin of Inertia Proceedings of the international workshop on Mach's Principle and the Origin of Inertia

The Origin of Inertia

Space and Geometry - Mach in his own words

I haven't read any of the mentioned books so I can't give a recommendation. All I can say is that they looked interesting.

If you need help with your experiments, you can contact M. Simon by getting his e-mail from the sidebar at IEC Fusion Technology