What do light clocks say to us regarding the so-called clock hypothesis?

  1. Bacelar Valente, Mario
Revista:
Theoria: an international journal for theory, history and foundations of science

ISSN: 0495-4548

Any de publicació: 2018

Títol de l'exemplar: Delia Graff Fara. A celebration of her life and career

Volum: 33

Número: 3

Pàgines: 435-446

Tipus: Article

DOI: 10.1387/THEORIA.18143 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openDialnet editor

Altres publicacions en: Theoria: an international journal for theory, history and foundations of science

Resum

The clock hypothesis is taken to be an assumption independent of special relativity necessary to describe accelerated clocks. This enables to equate the time read off by a clock to the proper time. Here, it is considered a physical system–the light clock–proposed by Marzke and Wheeler. Recently, Fletcher proved a theorem that shows that a sufficiently small light clock has a time reading that approximates to an arbitrary degree the proper time. The clock hypothesis is not necessary to arrive at this result. Here, one explores the consequences of this regarding the status of the clock hypothesis. It is argued in this work that there is no need for the clock hypothesis in the special theory of relativity.

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