reany

Einstein on Newton's kludge of absolute acceleration

I shall turn to those problems which are related to the
development which I have traced. Already Newton
recognized that the law of inertia is unsatisfactory in
a context so far unmentioned in this exposition, namely
that it gives no real cause for the special physical
position of the states of motion of the inertial frames
relative to all other states of motion. It makes the
observable material bodies responsible for the gravitational
behaviour of a material point, yet indicates no material
cause for the inertial behaviour of the material point but
devises the cause for it (absolute space or inertial ether).
This is not logically inadmissible although it is
unsatisfactory. For this reason E. Mach demanded a
modification of the law of inertia in the sense that the
inertia should be interpreted as an acceleration resistance
of the bodies against one another and not against "space."
This interpretation governs the expectation that accelerated
bodies have concordant accelerating action in the same sense
on other bodies (acceleration induction).
---- FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS AND PROBLEMS OF THE THEORY OF
RELATIVITY, [Found in Gerald Tauber's Einstein's
General Theory of Relativity, pp 56-57.]

Or put simply: Why do we admit to a theory in which gravitational
effects are accepted as caused by the interactions of material
objects, yet accelerational effects (such as rotational distortions)
are not?

Patrick