Why Noninertial Frame?

I'll try to answer two versions of the above question. First let me answer this version: why have I created this blog (which happens to be titled "Noninertial Frame")? My reason is fairly simple. I am a professional physicist and a professor at a liberal arts college. Both my undergraduate and doctoral degrees are from research universities, but somewhere along the way I picked up the liberal-arts mindset. I have a deep love for the liberal arts, including physics. Yes, physics is one of the liberal arts. It is part of the Quadrivium (which consists of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy or cosmology - I'm counting this last as including physics). Although physics is my first academic love, it is not my only one. I am particularly interested in philosophy (part of the Trivium which includes grammar, rhetoric, and logic), primarily in philosophy of science. As I have no professional training or expertise in any area other than physics (and a bit of math), I do not expect to engage in philosophy (or any other discipline except physics) in a professional capacity. But I love thinking about it and I love writing about it (and the writing helps me clarify my thinking). What better forum for unprofessional writing than a blog? With a blog I may actually find a reader or two who is interested in my thoughts, and I'll always know where to find that essay I wrote a few years back...

Now for the second version of the above question: why have I chosen to name my blog Noninertial Frame? Well, the term is used in physics for a reference frame that does not obey Newton's Laws of Motion (specifically the Law of Inertia). Generally this means the reference frame is accelerating with respect to frames which do obey Newton's Laws. Why is this apropos for my blog? First of all, it's a physics term and I am a physicist. I expect everything I write to be connected to physics, if not entirely about physics. Second, I am writing from the perspective of a liberal arts physicist for whom the usual rules for physicists (focus on research, don't muck about with philosophy, etc.) don't seem to apply. Finally, I'm hoping that this blog will help me maintain my interest in the connections between physics and the other liberal arts, so that I don't settle into the inertia of a routine career in physics teaching and research.

Now, what can you expect to find here. Mostly I will post essays (occasionally lengthy ones, I would guess) about issues related to physics but not strictly within the domain of physics per se. These essays will mostly be philosophical, but I will likely work in some mathematics and maybe a few discussions of literature and music (to round out the seven liberal arts). I'll keep it all tied to physics, though, because if it has nothing to do with physics then there is probably no reason for anyone to read what I write.

I hope this blog will be useful for someone other than me, but if not then I can live with that. Cheers!