From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: OT - GPS time
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:31:55 -0400
Message-ID: <k1d8a2p2f9h4jvego9649u5393hm0hvlnd@4ax.com>

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 11:10:40 -0700, altar@nospam.net wrote:


>I don't recall what questions I might have missed, sorry. I can only
>answer questions if I think I might know the answer. That eliminates
>me answering many.<g>
>
>There have actually been clocks, and other time instruments in orbit
>and other high speed space vehicles's that run slower than they do on
>the surface of the earth. That is not theory, or guesswork. It was an
>observed phenomenon. Repeatedly. Further, it was found that even at
>the same rate of speed, timepieces closer to a gravitational force ran
>faster than further away.

It isn't just "overwhelming evidence".  It is settled "black letter
scientific law" just like the laws of Newton, Charles, Boyle, Plank
and others.  The GPS system simply would not work without relativistic
correction, something that is done continuously in real time from the
control station.  It has to be done in real time since the orbit isn't
a perfect circle and thus each satellite's speed varies during the
orbit.

If sill had been a real engineer he'd have probably subscribed to the
Hewlett-Packard newsletter and seen the article reporting on the first
proof of the relativistic effects of speed on time.  That was when HP
engineers specially prepared two of their new cesium beam atomic
clocks to run almost exactly in sync.  They then flew one around the
world on a commercial airliner (the photo showed the clock seatbelted
to one first class seat and the huge battery pack to the adjacent
one.)  After the trip, the airborne clock was a bit behind the clock
that remained on the ground.  Slow by exactly the amount Einstein
predicted.  Since HP limited the distribution of this newsletter to
real engineers there is zero chance that sill would have seen it.

Another area where relativistic effects absolutely dominate is with
particle accelerators.  The reason accelerators have become so large
(the cancelled Superconducting Super-collider in Texas and CERN's huge
one as examples) is that at relativistic speeds, even the vaporously
light electron has so much mass that even superconducting magnets
can't deflect it very far off of a straight path.  Thus the diameter
of an accelerator that accelerates particles to within a few fractions
of a percent of the speed of light has to be huge - miles, in fact.
This effect is, again, in complete agreement with Einstein's theory.

I can't believe that we're wasting time arguing with such an ignorant
cluck.  That's like arguing over perpetual motion and over-unity
energy and all the other kook-isms.  I guess that it's like teasing a
retard.  Fun, if a bit cruel.

John