Why does Matter cause inertia?

  • Context: Graduate 
  • Thread starter Thread starter Thomas Eaton
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Cause Inertia Matter
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
2 replies · 1K views
Thomas Eaton
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
So, one of my friends posed this question to me, with some background on vibrations on the Higgs Field, But, he also said that doesn't explain why matter causes inertia. As, if that accepted theory is true, it should simply create big, choppy waves. I apologize if my writing is confusing, and I thank those that take the time to answer this question.
 
on Phys.org
I don't think it's right to say matter causes inertia, but rather that inertia is a property of matter Similarly, matter doesn't cause length but rather length is a property of matter. So ... inertia isn't "caused" any more than length is.

Now, I'm no expert on these kind of fundamental questions so it could be that one of our more knowledgeable members will jump in with something better.
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: Bystander, russ_watters, vanhees71 and 1 other person
I think, it's already the complete answer. Physics just describes nature, it cannot explain why nature is the way it is. As phinds points out the observables we assign to phenomena are just quantified properties of these phenomena. They have been found to be useful to describe nature and that's why we use them.
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: LLT71 and russ_watters