From: utzoo!decvax!duke!harpo!uwvax!doug Newsgroups: net.physics Title: the spinning ant and Ernst Mach Article-I.D.: uwvax.551 Posted: Wed Aug 11 20:54:29 1982 Received: Sat Aug 14 03:57:03 1982 reply to Don Chan replying to me about the spinning ant We are quickly leaving behind my understanding of the subject! Anyway, according to Dr. Davies, Ernst Mach attempted (unsucessfully says Davies) to promote the so-called relationist view that the spinning ant would experience inertial forces because it was spinning relative to the whole rest of the universe - a universe which cannot possibly be eliminated in any experiment! Davies says that modern physics says the fact that the ant experiences the inertial forces can be taken as "evidence of the physical reality of space." He maintains that Mach's view is not accepted by the mainstream of physics. Einstein was very influenced by Mach's thesis. The question is - if we *could* completely eliminate the rest of the universe from the experiment would the poor ant *still* experience inertial forces. Davies maintains it would.