WordNet
inertial reference frame
n. a coordinate system in which Newton's first law of motion is valid [syn: inertial frame]
Usage examples of "inertial reference frame".
It seemed, then, that the only recourse was to abandon the relativity principle and conclude that there was after all a privileged, universal, inertial reference frame in which the speed of light was the same in all directions as the simplest form of the laws required, and that the laws derived in all other frames would show a departure from this ideal.