Inertia and Gravitation: From Aristotle's Natural Motion to Geodesic Worldlines in Curved Spacetime - Softcover

Petkov, Vesselin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0987987151 ISBN 13: 9780987987150

Publisher: Minkowski Institute Press, 2012

Synopsis

This book fills a gap in the literature. So far there has been no book which deals with inertia and gravitation by explicitly addressing open questions and issues which have been hampering the proper understanding of these phenomena. The book places a strong emphasis on the physical understanding of the main aspects and features of inertia and gravitation. It discusses questions such as: (i) Are inertial forces fictitious or real? (ii) Does special relativity provide an insight into the origin of inertia? (iii) Does mass increase relativistically? (iv) Why is the inertial mass equivalent to the gravitational mass? (v) Are gravitational phenomena caused by gravitational interaction according to general relativity? (vi) Is there gravitational energy? (vii) Do gravitational waves carry gravitational energy? (viii) Can gravity be quantized? October 19, 2019: new printing -- an Appendix ``On Relativistic Mass'' is included, some notes and references are added and noticed typos are corrected.

About this title

About the Author:

Vesselin Petkov received a graduate degree in physics from Sofia University, a doctorate in philosophy from the Institute for Philosophical Research of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and a doctorate in physics from Concordia University in Montreal. He taught at Sofia University and Concordia University, and also had a stint at the Physics Department of the Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria, before coming to Montreal in 1990.

Vesselin Petkov is one of the founding members and the current director of the Minkowski Institute (minkowskiinstitute.org/) whose most distinct feature is the employment of a research strategy based on the successful methods behind the greatest discoveries in physics. In this sense the Minkowski Institute is without a counterpart in the world.

Website: spacetimecentre.org/vpetkov/

About this edition

• Publisher: Minkowski Institute Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0987987151
• ISBN 13: 9780987987150
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 151