[escepticos] Inercia (¿por que no os gusta hablar de ello?)

[Carlos Ungil <Carlos.Ungil@...>]

Hola, hola.

> A mi lo que me resulta curioso es que nos planteemos estas cuestiones de
> inercia y no nos planteemos el por qué de la carga, del color o del sabor.
> La pregunta es similar. Todas son propiedades de la materia y como tales
> con unas propiedades bien descritas. El comportamiento de las cargas no
> lo referimos a las cargas distantes o, en su caso, el del color a los
> colores distantes o ...

La verdad es que no entiendo a qué tanto negar el interés de la
cuestión.

,----[ http://pup.princeton.edu/titles/5635.html ]
| Winner of the 1996 Association of American Publishers Award for Best
| Professional/Scholarly Book in Physics and Astronomy
| 
| Gravitation and Inertia
|  
| Ignazio Ciufolini and John Archibald Wheeler
| 
| Cloth | 1995 | $80.00 / £55.00
| 576 pp. | 6 x 9 | 15 halftones 60 line illus. 6 tables
| 
| Einstein's standard and battle-tested geometric theory
| of gravity--spacetime tells mass how to move and mass tells spacetime
| how to curve--is expounded in this book by Ignazio Ciufolini and John
| Wheeler. They give special attention to the theory's observational
| checks and to two of its consequences: the predicted existence of
| gravitomagnetism and the origin of inertia (local inertial frames) in
| Einstein's general relativity: inertia here arises from mass there.
| 
| The authors explain the modern understanding of the link between
| gravitation and inertia in Einstein's theory, from the origin of
| inertia in some cosmological models of the universe, to the
| interpretation of the initial value formulation of Einstein's standard
| geometrodynamics; and from the devices and the methods used to
| determine the local inertial frames of reference, to the experiments
| used to detect and measure the "dragging of inertial frames of
| reference." In this book, Ciufolini and Wheeler emphasize present,
| past, and proposed tests of gravitational interaction, metric
| theories, and general relativity. They describe the numerous
| confirmations of the foundations of geometrodynamics and some proposed
| experiments, including space missions, to test some of its fundamental
| predictions--in particular gravitomagnetic field or "dragging of
| inertial frames" and gravitational waves.
| 
| Reviews:
| 
| "[An] admirably comprehensive guide. . . .The approach is leavened
| with historical perspectives and almost poetic insights. Particularly
| valuable [are] the up to date accounts of experimental tests of
| general relativity."--Robert Matthews, New Scientist
| 
| ". . . it has plenty of useful resources and ideas and it is
| enjoyable. It covers, sometimes with distinctive originality, topics
| not easily found in other textbooks. Its charm lies in the
| interweaving of Wheeler's speculative quest for the physical origin of
| inertia with Ciufolini's experimental craft. In such interweaving lies
| the magic of an extraordinarily beautiful science: the science of the
| shape of space-time."--Carlo Rovelli, Science
| 
| "In this important work, Ciufolini and Wheeler provide extensive
| coverage of current gravitation theory, current problems of interest
| to the physics community, and recent and proposed experiments based
| upon Einstein's theory of general relativity."--Choice
| 
| "This is an excellent book that will be of interest to anyone
| seriously interested in general relativity. It is clearly written with
| a very well connected development of many topics which are not covered
| in the other books on the subject."--Classical and Quantum Gravity
| 
| "Gravitation and Inertia has plenty of useful resources and ideas and
| it is enjoyable. It covers, sometimes with distinctive originality,
| topics not easily found in other textbooks. Its charm lies in the
| interweaving of Wheeler's speculative quest for the physical origin of
| inertia with Ciufolini's experimental craft. In such interweaving lies
| the magic of an extraordinarily beautiful science: the science of the
| shape of space-time."--Science
`----

Pueden encontrarse dos capítulos de muestra:

Einstein Geometrodynamics
http://pup.princeton.edu/sample_chapters/ciufolini/chapter2.pdf

Tests of Einstein Geometrodynamics
http://pup.princeton.edu/sample_chapters/ciufolini/chapter3.pdf

,----[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ]
| Preface
| Chart of Main Topics 
| 1 A First Tour (1)
| 2 Einstein Geometrodynamics (13)
| 3 Tests of Einstein Geometrodynamics (87)
| 4 Cosmology, Standard Models, and Homogeneous Rotating Models (185)
| 5 The Initial-Value Problem in Einstein Geometrodynamics (269)
| 6 The Gravitomagnetic Field and Its Measurement (315)
| 7 Some Highlights of the Past and a Summary of Geometrodynamics 
|    and Inertia (384)
| Mathematical Appendix (403)
| Symbols and Notations (437)
| Author Index (445)
| Subject Index of Mathematical Appendix (455)
| Subject Index (461)
| Fundamental and Astronomical Constants and Units (493)
`----