To the middle of the lid of the chest is fixed externally a hook with
rope attached, and now a " being " (what kind of a being is immaterial
to us) begins pulling at this with a constant force. The chest
together with the observer then begin to move "upwards" with a
uniformly accelerated motion. In course of time their velocity will
reach unheard-of values -- provided that we are viewing all this from
another reference-body which is not being pulled with a rope.
But how does the man in the chest regard the Process ? The
acceleration of the chest will be transmitted to him by the reaction
of the floor of the chest. He must therefore take up this pressure by
means of his legs if he does not wish to be laid out full length on
the floor. He is then standing in the chest in exactly the same way as
anyone stands in a room of a home on our earth. If he releases a body
which he previously had in his land, the accelertion of the chest will
no longer be transmitted to this body, and for this reason the body
will approach the floor of the chest with an accelerated relative
motion. The observer will further convince himself that the
acceleration of the body towards the floor of the chest is always of
the same magnitude, whatever kind of body he may happen to use for the
experiment.
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