To: RightWhale
Gravity is a force. Just because a force could be set up in a centrifuge that mimics some effects of gravity (normal acceleration namely) doesn't make the force equal to the effects of gravity.
For instance, the effects of coriolis accelerations on humans, if placed in a spinning habitat (to mimic gravity's effects in space) of small radius supposedly can severely disorient them because of the effects that the acceleration has on the function of the inner ear.
Not only that, but gravity is a field. Centrifigual force, as far as i know and have learned, is not a field and cannot be treated as one.
14 posted on
04/04/2004 2:21:01 PM PDT by
anobjectivist
(Publically edumacated)
To: anobjectivist; RightWhale
As I understand Einstein's equivalence principle, you can't tell "real" gravity from truly uniform acceleration in the absence of external clues. There should be absolutely no way. Thus, if time dilation occurs in a gravity well, it should occur in a centrifuge. At least, Einstein would say so.
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