2.

What do you think Newton’s bucket thought experiment

shows? Discuss the analogies and disanalogies with the
twins paradox in special relativity.

 Earman, J World Enough and Space-Time (MIT Press

1989), Chpt. 4.*
 Edward Boyle  History of Science REFERENC  AVAILABL
level 12 P-4 EAR   E E

 Lacy, H ‘The Scientific Intelligibility of Absolute Space’,
Brit. J. Phil. Sci., (1970) pp.317-342.* GOT ON PC
 Rindler, W Introduction to Special Relativity (OUP 1991),
Chapter 2, Sections 8-12. GOT
 Lucas and Hodgson Spacetime and Electromagnetism
(OUP 1990), Chapter 2, Sections 8-12. GOT
 Sklar, L Space, Time and Spacetime, (University of
California Press, 1974), pp. 261–72. (*)

Get off Jasper
 French, A Special Relativity, (Chapman and Hall 1968),
pp.154-159. (*)
 Edward Boyle  Mathematics J-2 REFERENC  AVAILABL
level 11 FRE   E E


 Laymon, R ‘Newton’s Bucket Experiment’ J. Hist. Phil. 16

(1978) pp.399-413.*
 GOT on google docs

Bucket
What does it show? ,,,,

Accelerations in bucket similar to accelarations of twins

In this essay I will exposite Newton’s bucket though experiment,
describe different persepectives on what it shows and then show one
analogy and one disanology to the twins/triplets paradox

To begin with I will exposite Newton’s bucket experiment.

In Newton’s Principia he describes a vessel, suspended by a cord. The

cord is twisted while the bucket is held stationary, the vessel is then
filled with water. The bucket is then released. As the cord untwists
itself the surface of the water will at first be even, then as the vessel
begins to revolve, the water will form itself into a concave figure.
When the water and the bucket are not at rest relative to each other,
the water is still concave. We can conclude that if we are in a rotating
reference frame, and the rotating vesell appears at rest, or have no
means of constructing a reference frame, we can detect the motion of
the bucket by identifying the concavity of the water. Similarly in
Newton’s rotating spheres experiment, we can identify the movement
of the spheres by reference to the tension in the string that connects
them, even if they appear at rest to us.

I will now discuss what newton’s bucket experiment shows. Firstly,

my first intuitions suggest that his experiment fails to demonstrate any
abosolute motion rather – circular motion is fictitious – instead
consisting of a series of directional accelerations. The concavity being
formed by a series of restrictions of the bucket on the water moving