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Rating: 
Summary: Review of Origin of Inertia
Review: The book "Origin of Inertia" is a great piece of work. The subtitle indicates the main topics of the book,
namely, "Extended Mach's Principle and Cosmological Consequences". The book was published by Apeiron,
a publisher in Montreal, Canada: http://redshift.vif.com (ISBN: 0-9683689-3-X)Amitabha Ghosh has published many research papers related with the topics of this book in important
conferences and scientific journals including Astrophysics and Space Science; Pramana Journal of Physics;
Earth, Moon and Planets etc. In 2002 he organized an International Workshop on Mach's Principle and the
Origin of Inertia which happened in Kharagpur, India. The Proceeding of this workshop were published by
Apeiron in 2003 (edited by M. Sachs and A. R. Roy, ISBN: 0-9732911-0-9). The main topic of the book is to discuss the inertia of bodies. According to Newton's first law of motion,
when there is no net force on a body it remains at rest or moving in straight line at a constant velocity.
If there is a force on the body it will be accelerated along the direction of the force, with the
acceleration being proportional to the force and inversely proportional to the inertial mass of the body,
according to Newton's second law of motion. There are two main puzzles with Newton's laws.
The first is that the inertial masses of bodies is proportional to their gravitational masses.
This suggests that the inertia of any body is due to a gravitational interaction.
But there is nothing in Newton's laws of motion nor in his universal law of gravitation which connects
these two aspects (inertia and gravitation). The second puzzle is that the best inertial frames
(frames of reference where Newton's laws are valid) are those which are not accelerated relative to the frame
defined by the distant galaxies in the cosmos. This suggests that the distant matter in the cosmos,
or some other matter which is at rest relative to the frame of distant galaxies, defines/creates/specifies the
inertial frames. Once more there is nothing in Newton's laws which links these two aspects
(inertial frames and distant matter). The idea that the distant matter in the cosmos specifies the inertial
frames due to a gravitational interaction became known as Mach's principle, a subject mentioned in the
subtitle of this book, as these ideas were presented by the austrian experimental physicist and philosopher
Ernst Mach in his influential book The Science of Mechanics, first published in 1883. Mach didn't
implement his ideas mathematically. This is the goal of Amitabha Ghosh in this book. Origin of Inertia has 9 chapters: Introduction, Difficulties with Newton's Laws of Motion,
Mach's Principle and Inertial Induction, Extension of Mach's Principle, Universal Interaction and Cosmic
Drag, Cosmic Drag: Cosmological Implications, Local Interaction of Photons with Matter, Interaction of
Matter with Matter, Extra-galactic Phenomena. They are followed by an Epilogue and a rich list of References.
The Forword was written by David Roscoe, Applied Mathematics Department, Sheffield University, UK. In order to implement Mach's principle the author defines the mean rest frame of the universe connected with all
the matter in the cosmos. The main idea of the book is to present a modified law of gravitation. It includes
Newton's inverse square law and has two extra terms. One of the extra terms is proportional to the
acceleration of the test body relative to an infinite and quasistatic universe and falls inversely with the
distance to the source body. When integrated for the test body interacting with the whole universe this term
leads to an analogous to Newton's second law of motion. But now the mass which appears is a gravitational mass.
This explains at once the remarkable proportionality between inertial and gravitational masses, which had puzzled
Newton, Mach, Einstein and many others. The second extra term is proportional to the square of the velocity of the test body. This is a dragging force of
cosmic origin. Amitabha Ghosh calculates the magnitude of this cosmic drag and obtains many implications.
In particular he applies his model for photons interacting with matter and derives a cosmological redshift which
gives an explanation for Hubble's law without big bang and without the associated expansion of the universe.
He also explains many other puzzling redshifts observed in astronomy, the bending of light etc. When he considers
the interaction of matter with matter the cosmic drag explains the transfer of solar angular momentum, the
distribution of matter in spiral galaxies and other puzzling phenomena. All of this is obtained without the supposion
of dark matter. In summary this is a fascinating book which should be read by all scientists interested in fundamental questions of
physics and cosmology. Andre Koch Torres Assis
Institute of Physics State University of Campinas
13083-970 Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Email: assis@ifi.unicamp.br
Homepage: http://www.ifi.unicamp.br/~assis
Rating:
Summary: Review of Origin of Inertia
Review: The book "Origin of Inertia" is a great piece of work. The subtitle indicates the main topics of the book,
namely, "Extended Mach's Principle and Cosmological Consequences". The book was published by Apeiron,
a publisher in Montreal, Canada: http://redshift.vif.com (ISBN: 0-9683689-3-X) Amitabha Ghosh has published many research papers related with the topics of this book in important
conferences and scientific journals including Astrophysics and Space Science; Pramana Journal of Physics;
Earth, Moon and Planets etc. In 2002 he organized an International Workshop on Mach's Principle and the
Origin of Inertia which happened in Kharagpur, India. The Proceeding of this workshop were published by
Apeiron in 2003 (edited by M. Sachs and A. R. Roy, ISBN: 0-9732911-0-9). The main topic of the book is to discuss the inertia of bodies. According to Newton's first law of motion,
when there is no net force on a body it remains at rest or moving in straight line at a constant velocity.
If there is a force on the body it will be accelerated along the direction of the force, with the
acceleration being proportional to the force and inversely proportional to the inertial mass of the body,
according to Newton's second law of motion. There are two main puzzles with Newton's laws.
The first is that the inertial masses of bodies is proportional to their gravitational masses.
This suggests that the inertia of any body is due to a gravitational interaction.
But there is nothing in Newton's laws of motion nor in his universal law of gravitation which connects
these two aspects (inertia and gravitation). The second puzzle is that the best inertial frames
(frames of reference where Newton's laws are valid) are those which are not accelerated relative to the frame
defined by the distant galaxies in the cosmos. This suggests that the distant matter in the cosmos,
or some other matter which is at rest relative to the frame of distant galaxies, defines/creates/specifies the
inertial frames. Once more there is nothing in Newton's laws which links these two aspects
(inertial frames and distant matter). The idea that the distant matter in the cosmos specifies the inertial
frames due to a gravitational interaction became known as Mach's principle, a subject mentioned in the
subtitle of this book, as these ideas were presented by the austrian experimental physicist and philosopher
Ernst Mach in his influential book The Science of Mechanics, first published in 1883. Mach didn't
implement his ideas mathematically. This is the goal of Amitabha Ghosh in this book. Origin of Inertia has 9 chapters: Introduction, Difficulties with Newton's Laws of Motion,
Mach's Principle and Inertial Induction, Extension of Mach's Principle, Universal Interaction and Cosmic
Drag, Cosmic Drag: Cosmological Implications, Local Interaction of Photons with Matter, Interaction of
Matter with Matter, Extra-galactic Phenomena. They are followed by an Epilogue and a rich list of References.
The Forword was written by David Roscoe, Applied Mathematics Department, Sheffield University, UK. In order to implement Mach's principle the author defines the mean rest frame of the universe connected with all
the matter in the cosmos. The main idea of the book is to present a modified law of gravitation. It includes
Newton's inverse square law and has two extra terms. One of the extra terms is proportional to the
acceleration of the test body relative to an infinite and quasistatic universe and falls inversely with the
distance to the source body. When integrated for the test body interacting with the whole universe this term
leads to an analogous to Newton's second law of motion. But now the mass which appears is a gravitational mass.
This explains at once the remarkable proportionality between inertial and gravitational masses, which had puzzled
Newton, Mach, Einstein and many others. The second extra term is proportional to the square of the velocity of the test body. This is a dragging force of
cosmic origin. Amitabha Ghosh calculates the magnitude of this cosmic drag and obtains many implications.
In particular he applies his model for photons interacting with matter and derives a cosmological redshift which
gives an explanation for Hubble's law without big bang and without the associated expansion of the universe.
He also explains many other puzzling redshifts observed in astronomy, the bending of light etc. When he considers
the interaction of matter with matter the cosmic drag explains the transfer of solar angular momentum, the
distribution of matter in spiral galaxies and other puzzling phenomena. All of this is obtained without the supposion
of dark matter. In summary this is a fascinating book which should be read by all scientists interested in fundamental questions of
physics and cosmology. Andre Koch Torres Assis
Institute of Physics State University of Campinas
13083-970 Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Email: assis@ifi.unicamp.br
Homepage: http://www.ifi.unicamp.br/~assis
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