ASTRO 142 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Inertial Frame Of Reference, Fictitious Force, Gravitational Redshift
Document Summary
When in orbit, the space shuttle is falling around earth in a state of freefall. There is no priori reason why gravitational force should have any connection with inertial forces. Experiments clearly show that the acceleration due to the force of gravity acting upon a. Feels as though gravity is canceled body is independent of the mass of that body. Only be true if inertial and gravitational mass were equal and the force is proportional to the mass. Gravitational and inertial forces produce effects that are indistinguishable. The inertial forces such as centrifugal force exactly cancel the gravitational force. Gravity is canceled by freefall: you cannot distinguish the inertial force from a gravitational force. Newtonian (weak) equivalence principle: gravity is completely indistinguishable from any other acceleration acceleration. A freely falling observer is truly unaccelerated, it is you who are accelerating relative to the inertial frame. We are the ones accelerating, hence what we call gravity is equivalent to an upwards.
