Mach's Principle and Minkowski Spacetime

Abstract

It is shown that when the Minkowski metric is approached by a limiting process using two different static, spherically-symmetric, closed cosmological models, that although the energy-stress tensors for the Einstein-Friedmann field equations vanishes, their integral does not. Since part of this integral consists of the mass of the incoherent dust background, which is the same in both models, the Minkowski metric obtained by this limiting process cannot be regarded as “anti-Machian,” since there is an infinite amount of ponderable matter in the background, albeit at vanishing density. One of the models is the Einstein static universe with its cosmological term. The other model does not employ this term, but instead uses a tensor that has vanishing trace, negative energy density and negative pressure. Gravitational energy is also studied, and it is pointed out that for both models, this energy becomes infinitely negative in the Minkowski limit.