Clock hypothesis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The clock hypothesis is an assumption in special relativity. It states that the speed of clocks doesn't depend on their acceleration but only on their instantanous velocity. This is equivalent to stating, that a clock moving along a path P measures the proper time, defined by:
.
The clock hypothesis wasn't included in Einstein's original 1905 formulation of special relativity and therefore, the theory was unable to make predictions for accelerated systems. Since then, it has become a standard assumption and is usually included in the axioms of special relativity, especially in the light of experimental verification up to very high accelerations in particle accelerators.
Hermann Weyl was a notable critic of the clock hypothesis.
[edit] References
- S.R. Mainwaring, G.E. Stedman, Accelerated Clock Principles in Special Relativity. Physical Review A47 (1993) 3611–3619.
- R. Anderson, I. Vetharaniam, G.E. Stedman, Conventionality of Synchronization, Gauge Dependence and Test Theories of Relativity., Physics Reports 295 (1998) 94–180.
- A.M. Eisele, On the Behavior of an Accelerated Clock, Helvetica Physica Acta 60 (1987) 1024–1037.
- P. Mittelstaedt, H. Heintzmann, Laws of Physics in Accelerated Reference Frames (german), in Springer Tracts in Modern Physics (G. Höhler, ed.) 47 (1968) 185-225.
[edit] External links
- gr-qc/9908048 Harvey R. Brown, Oliver Pooley, The origin of the spacetime metric: Bell's `Lorentzian pedagogy' and its significance in general relativity
- "Does a clock's acceleration affect its timing rate?", from the USENET Physics FAQ
