Etymology

Mach's principle

Today it means: The principle that the inertia of a body arises from its relation to the totality of all other bodies in the universe. Full definition →

Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

Named after German physicist Ernst Mach, to whom the hypothesis is often attributed. Coined by Albert Einstein, who sought to incorporate the hypothesis into his theory of general relativity.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.