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From: ethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac)
Newsgroups: net.astro,net.physics
Subject: Re: Equivalence Principle and Electric Charge
Message-ID: <887@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 8-Dec-84 10:53:13 EST
Article-I.D.: utastro.887
Posted: Sat Dec  8 10:53:13 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Dec-84 02:46:22 EST
References: <1534@pur-phy.UUCP>, <6475@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: UTexas Astronomy Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 23
Xref: watmath net.astro:378 net.physics:1986

[]
I've never thought about this before, and I suspect that
working out the full answer is quite time consuming.  However,
I think I know what the resolution must be.  The equivalence
of gravity and acceleration (for an object on the surface of
the Earth) is a *local* equivalence.  On the other hand, the
radiation of electromagnetic waves necessarily involves the
application of boundary conditions at infinity (i.e. no incoming
waves in the Minkowski frame, something more complicated but
along the same lines when curvature is invoked).  Therefore there
is not necessarily a paradox involved here.  On the other hand,
it would be nice if someone worked this one out.  Any volunteers?


The above will not be the official opinion of the University of Texas
until such time as it can be reliably ascertained that hell has frozen
over to a depth of at least 10 meters.

"I can't help it if my         Ethan Vishniac
    knee jerks"                {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
                               Department of Astronomy
                               University of Texas
                               Austin, Texas 78712