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    Carmelics

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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The boundary condition 'flat at infinity' is incompatible with Mach's Principle

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.The boundary condition 'flat at infinity' entails a global inertial frame tied to empty flat space at infinity
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.A global inertial frame tied to empty flat space at infinity is unrelated to the mass-energy content of space
      ?

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    • 3.Mach's Principle requires that only mass-energy can influence inertia
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Einstein's 1917 introduction of the cosmological constant was explicitly motivated by replacing 'flat at infinity' to satisfy Machian constraints.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.A spacetime that is flat at infinity permits solutions where test particles in an otherwise empty universe possess inertia, violating Mach's demand that inertia vanish without surrounding matter.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.The Thirring-Lense effect demonstrates that local inertial frames are dragged by rotating mass distributions, confirming that inertia has material origins incompatible with a boundary frame tied to empty infinity.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Barbour and Bertotti's Machian relational mechanics shows that a consistent Machian dynamics requires no preferred asymptotic structure, making any fixed boundary condition non-Machian by construction.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.The 'flat at infinity' condition introduces an absolute element in the sense of Kretschner and Anderson—a non-dynamical background structure that resists Mach's reduction of geometry to matter relations.
      ?

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