[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have often wondered why we can easily detect our angular motion with respect to the rest of the universe but not detect linear motion.
Thanks to the dimensions of Mass being confirmed by Ing.Saviour's analysis, I now understand why. Say I am sitting in a closed room with no windows I have a bucket of water on a turntable. I rotate the turntable rapidly. As the water takes up the bucket's rotation I see the water surface curve as it goes down in the middle and up round the edges ... Why then is it so difficult to detect the absolute linear motion relative to absolute space. If we use our imagination we can see that given a big enough space ship (the size of a billion galaxies say) which can travel at googleplex warp speeds then we could easily detect motion relative to the absolute frame of reference. [EMAIL PROTECTED] quoted: ``In World War I, during a naval battle near the Falkland Islands (off the east coast of South America, about 52 degrees south latitude) between the German and British Navy, British gunners were surprised to see their salvos falling 100 yards to the left of the German ships. The engineers who designed the sighting mechanisms were well aware of the Coriolis deflection and had carefully considered it, however, they neglected the fact that not all sea battles occur in the Northern Hemisphere. Thus, during the engagement, the initial British shots fell at a distance from the targets equal to twice the Coriolis deflection.'' Hi All, The above is part of a fascinating post. But there is an alternative (mentioned below) to ``motion relative to the absolute frame of reference'' which demonstrates that the centrifugal and Coriolis forces are not "virtual", and also which produces excellent design equations. Jack Smith Quoting from "Relational Mechanics" by Andre K. T. Assis, 1999 (This book can be purchased at Amazon.com.) p. 66 "Newton's Bucket Experiment ... What is important to stress here and in the previous examples of the circular orbit of the planets and of the two globes, is that this centrifugal force has no physical origin in Newtonian mechanics ... p. 217 "... relational mechanics predicts the appearance of a real gravitational centrifugal force exerted by the distant universe spinning around the bucket. We can then say that this centrifugal force presses the water against the wall of the bucket making the water rise on this wall until the centrifugal force is balanced by the gradient of pressure." p.259 "... the main lines ... have already been laid down: NO ABSOLUTE SPACE OR TIME [my caps]; only relational quantities should be involved; all forces should come from interactions between material bodies; for point particles the force should be directed along the line joining them and should obey the principle of action and reaction; ..." p. 261 "... We have been able to eplain the coincidence of Newtonian mechanics that the universe as a whole does not rotate relative to absolute space or to any inertial frame of reference. In other words, we have explained why the kinematical rotation of the earth is identical to its dynamical rotation ... We have derived the fact that all inertial forces of Newtonian mechanics, like the centrifugal force or Coriolis forces, are real forces ... This also explains the concavity in Newton's bucket as due to a relative rotation between the water and the distant universe ..." p. 219 "Foucault's Pendulum ... What should be emphasized again is that relational mechanics offers a physical explanation of the Coriolis force. It is now seen as a real gravitational force due to a relative rotation between the earth and the frame of distant galaxies,"
