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The relativistic clock problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

F. I. Mikhail
F. I. Mikhail
Affiliation:
Royal Holloway CollegeEnglefield Green, Surrey
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Abstract

The so-called ‘clock paradox’ is concerned with the difference in the time-intervals reckoned by two observers in relative motion for the lapse of time between two encounters. In this paper the problem is treated purely by general relativity by considering a particular example in which the two observers are attached to two test-particles moving freely in the field of a gravitating mass; one of these makes complete revolutions in a circular orbit while the other moves radially outwards and inwards. The time-interval between two successive encounters is shorter in the reckoning of the former than in that of the latter. The difference is found to agree qualitatively with a naïve application of special relativity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , October 1952 , pp. 608 - 615
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Philosophical Society 1952

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References

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