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Inertial Mass Separate From Gravitational Mass?

Posted by Soulskill on from the what-an-interesting-mass-effect dept.

CPerdue writes with this excerpt from the MIT arXiv blog: "The equivalence principle is one of the more fascinating ideas in modern science. It asserts that gravitational mass and inertial mass are identical. Einstein put it like this: the gravitational force we experience on Earth is identical to the force we would experience were we sitting in a spaceship accelerating at 1g. Newton might have said that the m in F=ma is the same as the ms in F=Gm1m2/r^2. ... All that changes today with the extraordinary work of Endre Kajari at the University of Ulm in Germany and a few buddies. They show how it is possible to create situations in the quantum world in which the effects of inertial and gravitational mass must be different. In fact, they show that these differences can be arbitrarily large."

13 of 405 comments (clear)

  1. Next stop: Arisia by The_mad_linguist · · Score: 4, Funny

    Because once we have inertial drives, it's only a little while before we can colonize other planets.

    The technology lens itself very well to that.

    1. Re:Next stop: Arisia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      The technology lens itself very well to that.

      I sea what you mean.

    2. Re:Next stop: Arisia by gd2shoe · · Score: 5, Funny

      Your comment will go over the heads of many, but ...

      Dude. Nice one.

      Oh, come on now. You must have meant "Nice won."

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  2. Inertial Dampeners??? by bfmorgan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Would this lead to science fictions "Inertial Dampeners"?

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    I hope this caused some synapses to fire.
    1. Re:Inertial Dampeners??? by sznupi · · Score: 4, Funny

      I will take the option of seatbelts while sitting at the bridge of your spaceship, thank you very much.

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    2. Re:Inertial Dampeners??? by AdmiralXyz · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's "dampers", unless you're talking about devices that make the bridge slightly moist when the ship is subject to acceleration.

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    3. Re:Inertial Dampeners??? by demonbug · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's "dampers", unless you're talking about devices that make the bridge slightly moist when the ship is subject to acceleration.

      We call those red-shirts around here.

    4. Re:Inertial Dampeners??? by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's a bloody good joke, sir.

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      Infuriate left and right
    5. Re:Inertial Dampeners??? by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 4, Funny

      Reverse engineering things like Star Trek to come up with plausible explanations is lots of fun.

      Trying to reconcile StarTrek's bullshit with physics is pointless masturbation.

      Color me baffled. Are you disagreeing with him or not? ;)

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  3. I would submit.... by Count+Fenring · · Score: 5, Funny

    I would submit, courteously, that your mother's inertial and gravitic masses are arbitrarily large.

    1. Re:I would submit.... by bistromath007 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Thanks for spoiling Wednesday's xkcd, you dick. :/

    2. Re:I would submit.... by jspenguin1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      You mean this one from 2004?

  4. Re:Dark matter? by Dahamma · · Score: 4, Funny

    More importantly, it means that one pound of dark matter COULD weigh over ten thousand pounds!