Origin of Inertia: Extended Mach's Principle and Cosmological Consequences 1st Edition

Wonderfully clear, although being a 17 year old publication it still adheres to the Copernican Principle lacking the fundamental advances gained by the COBE to PLANK findings. The excellent presentation of this and correlated subject matter to be found in "Journey to the Center of the Universe" (DVD), is in order to stay ahead on this and other related subjects.

I feel a movement coming on and it begins with illuminaries such as Amitabha Ghosh. This is an excellent book, not for the clarity of writing, as it will be a difficult read for the math illiterate, but because it smashes head on into assumptions about the standard model as layed out by Einsteins Theory of General Relativity. One of the deepest mysteries in physics is Einstein's Equivelence Principle, the foundation of General Relativity, which states that the inertial mass of a body is equvalent to the gravitational mass of that body. In other words, the harder it is to push, the more it weighs. General Relativity, as fomulated by Einstein, concludes that bodies respond to acceleration in a completely empty universe the same way they would in a universe filled with stars and other matter. This was not always the case however as there was a time during the development of the theory when Einstein considered Mach's Principle in the formulation of the theory. This principle states all reactions to acceleration are dependent on all the matter in the universe. No matter = no forces required for acceleration. He eventually abandoned the idea in favor of purely inertial systems that are unaffected by the universe as a whole and the result is todays standard model. Now General Relativity works and one may think there is no reason to question it, but it only works because we do not have a laboratory lacking stars with which to test it to its logical limit.In this book you are presented with the idea that inertia is not separate from gravity, but is instead just gravity itself with two new terms. To state this more clearly, a test body is not only affected by the gravity of a large mass but it is also affected by an additional gravitational force that arises when we try and accelerate that body (first new term) relative to all the bodies in the universe, and also when the body is moving at a constant velocity relative to those bodies (the second term). The implications are very titillating. It implies that Newton's first law may be suspect and that at any velocity relative to the universal mass there is a reactive force trying to slow the object. The faster the object moves (the closer it gets to the speed of light) the greater this gravitational force. In other words it looks like the object is increasing in mass as it approaches the speed of light as described by Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity when alternately it may not be so much increasing in mass as it is feeling a greater gravitational force. Brilliant!I love the doors that this concept opens. It becomes a foundation for attacking the sadly now accepted idea that dark matter exists when it seems it may not.For the weekend physicist there is a lot of math in this book to stumble over, but there is plenty of meat in between formulas to keep you wondering late into the night and you will still get more than enough out of this book even if you completely ignore all the formulas. Don't skip this book just because you are not math literate or you will be missing a great deal in your search for the truth.If I had one wish it would be that a new book be written by Jim Al-Khalili and would have the title "Amitabha Ghosh's Origin of Inertia Theory Without the Math". Just sayin.....

It's an interesting reading, but the author conveniently misses to mention in Chapter 3.2 that the acceleration dependent term in electrodynamics is controversial and so far has been found wrong by both, theory and experiment. The author introduces it as a given fact, and everything else is based on it. This makes the whole book misleading, not of any value. But it is an interesting concept, if only it was true. Just some more honesty would have been appreciated. For those who are more interested, check "Weber electrodynamics" in wikipedia or anywhere else and note that this is not the Maxwell electrodynamics. The differences between them could and have been tested numerous times and every time the correct theory was found to be Maxwell's.

In Origin of Inertia, Amitabha Ghosh provides a very possible explanation of Inertia. The book is extremely interesting to anyone who wants to understand the basic working of our universe. It makes bold suggestions and takes a new viewpoint on the universe, which is very different from orthodox thinking. For those of us who have wandered about the origin of inertia and suspected that it is in some way related to the gravitational effect of the distant universe, this book provides clarity and explanation.Instead of trying to invent new forces or exotic matter, the author simply assumes that velocity and acceleration of a mass, relative to masses in the rest of the universe, results in forces acting on that mass. When this very reasonable assumption has been made, the remaining part of the book rests on solid logic and mathematical proof.The book offers a thorough treatment of some of the effects, which is to be expected if the force of gravity has a velocity dependent, and an acceleration dependent term. It explains several observations that are not explained in a satisfactory way by mainstream cosmology. This book will certainly broaden your mind.

It is an excellent book on his much-needed theory that mathematically validates Mach's principle. His book includes many implications of his theory for which precision experiments may eventually be feasible to implement and further test it. The theory deserves serious attention by physicists unless his mathematical predictions become somehow proven physically untrue.Other popularly written related books include:*The Physical Foundations of General Relativity, D. W. Sciama, Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City New York, Anchor Books edition, 1969*Relativity and Common Sense--A New Approach to Einstein, Hermann Bondi, Dover Publications Inc. New York, 1962*The Unity of the Universe, D. W. Sciama, Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City New York, 1961*The Einstein Theory of Relativity-- A Trip to the Fourth Dimension, Lillian R. Lieber, edited and with a new Forward by David Derbes and Robert Janzen, Paul Dry Books, Inc. Philadelphia Pennsylvania, 2008