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by itishappy
819 days ago
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> Electromagnetism, weak, and strong interactions all make the acceleration meter register nonzero, even if the act "equally" on all parts of an object. I'm struggling to wrap my head around this assertion. If all parts of the object are acted upon "equally" (why is this in quotes?) where would this acceleration come from? |
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It is proper acceleration, not coordinate acceleration. An object can have nonzero proper acceleration even if none of its parts are in relative motion. Geometrically, proper acceleration corresponds to path curvature of the worldlines of the atoms in the object. "No relative motion" means all the worldlines of the object's atoms have the same path curvature (modulo some technicalities that don't really matter here). It does not require that that path curvature be zero.
Physically, a typical accelerometer works by measuring the internal stresses that are set up in an object when it is accelerated. These stresses put the object into a different equilibrium state than it was in when it was freely falling: the object's size and shape can change. For typical solid objects at typical Earthbound accelerations these changes are too small for us to see with our unaided senses--but sensitive instruments like accelerometers can detect them.