How (Not) to Define Inertial Frames.
It is nearly impossible to open a textbook on Newtonian mechanics without encountering the concept of inertial frames: the frames that are privileged by the theory's dynamics. In this paper, I argue that extant definitions of inertial frames are unsatisfactory. I criticize two common definitions of...
| Publicado en: | Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 103; no. 4; pp. 869 - 887 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Dec2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=190226488&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 190226488 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00048402 BHK jtl: Australasian Journal of Philosophy issn: 00048402 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Dec2025 vid: 103 iid: 4 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 190226488 10.1080/00048402.2025.2481921 ppf: 869 ppct: 18 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.3MB tig: atl: How (Not) to Define Inertial Frames. aug: au: Jacobs, Caspar affil: Leiden University su: Classical mechanics Spatiotemporal processes Communication Empirical research Symmetries (Quantum mechanics) sug: subj: Classical mechanics Spatiotemporal processes Communication Empirical research Symmetries (Quantum mechanics) keyword: classical mechanics empirical content inertial frames laws of nature spacetime structure symmetries ab: It is nearly impossible to open a textbook on Newtonian mechanics without encountering the concept of inertial frames: the frames that are privileged by the theory's dynamics. In this paper, I argue that extant definitions of inertial frames are unsatisfactory. I criticize two common definitions of inertial frames: law-based definitions, according to which inertial frames are simply those in which the laws are true, and structure-based definitions, according to which inertial frames are those that are 'adapted' to spatiotemporal structure. I then offer a new, symmetry-based definition of inertial frames. This definition offers a non-conventional way of specifying the dynamically privileged frames. The result clarifies the foundations of Newtonian mechanics and accounts for the empirical success of coordinate-dependent formulations of it. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Australasian Journal of Philosophy is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Australasian Journal of Philosophy holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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