Reply To: Precession of the perihelion of Mercury

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#421
Gyula Szász
Moderator

Bill: And please let me add….

“I’m thinking that Einstein used the infinite sum
identity for the Lorentz factor because it’s so
easy to differentiate but places the first power
of the gravitational mass on every term.

But not so for infinite product identities for
the Lorentz factor which are difficult to differentiate
but only need the gravitational mass to appear
in its first factor and no others.

And I am speculating that it is the influence of the
choice of treatments that accounts for properties
that don’t commute. An ambition which I have not
succeeded at yet.”

No, Einstein did not understand what mass is. He threw away the gravitational masses.
The gravitational mass is in the sense invariant that the gravitational charges are invariant.
And the gravitational charges are connected by a factor g =(G4π)^1/2 with the universal gravitational constant G to the gravitational masses.
The Lorentz factor is not a correct factor to describe “relativistic masses”.

During one could consider the gravitational mass as “invariant mass” within the above consideration, the “relativistic inertial mass” comes out of the correct equation of particles motion.
Gyula