Re: What other distortions need be attributed?

From: Ben Rudiak-Gould (br276deleteme_at_cam.ac.uk)
Date: 03/30/05 

Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 03:43:28 +0100

Ben Bean wrote:
> I am sitting on a large gravitational body and another craft or frame is out
> there in space, motionless WRT me, many millions of miles away from mine (or
> any) gravitational source. So his clock indisputably runs fast, as compared
> to my own. What about other distortions that must be attributed to that
> remote spacebound frame: a length distortion?? a clock dissycnhronicity??

I think you will be much less confused if you think in terms of experiments
and their outcomes, rather than in terms of intrinsic properties whose
physical meaning is unclear.

You say that his clock runs faster than yours; what experiment does that
correspond to? Probably one like this: he fires a laser pulse at you once
per second, and you fire a pulse at him once per second. You receive more
than one of his pulses per second, and he receives less than one of yours
per second. This is indeed what happens; you can work through the equations
and show that it's true, and there are various ways of visualizing why it's
true, and similar experiments in real life appear to confirm the prediction.

Then you ask about length contraction and desynchronization. What
experiments would those correspond to?

-- Ben