English

Einstein's Uniformly Rotating Disk and the Hole Argument

History and Philosophy of Physics 2015-04-23 v2

Abstract

Einstein's first mention of the uniformly rotating disk in print was in 1912, in his paper dealing with the static gravitational fields. After the 1912 paper, the rotating disk problem occurred in Einstein's writings only in a 1916 review paper, "The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity". Einstein did not mention the rotating disk problem in any of his papers on gravitation theory from 1912 until 1916. However, between 1912 and 1914 Einstein invoked the Hole Argument. I discuss the possible connection between the 1912 rotating disk problem and the Hole Argument and the connection between the 1916 rotating disk problem and the Point Coincident Argument. Finally, according to Mach's ideas we see that the possibility of an empty hole is unacceptable. In 1916 Einstein replaced the Hole Argument with the Point Coincidence Argument and later in 1918 with Mach's principle.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1504.03989,
  title  = {Einstein's Uniformly Rotating Disk and the Hole Argument},
  author = {Galina Weinstein},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1504.03989},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1201.5358

R2 v1 2026-06-22T09:16:41.697Z