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Fundamentally all of physics, including the physics of spacetime, is
based on measurements. The class of measurements we shall focus on are
those made by ``recording clocks'' [#!Taylor_and_Wheeler_1992!#] in a
state of ``free float''. The meaning of a ``recording clock'' is that
each one of them consists of
- (i)
- a clock oscillator which controls the clock and has a
standard frequency,
- (ii)
- a transmitter whose emission frequency is controlled by this oscillator,
- (iii)
- a receiver capable of measuring the emitted radiation from the other
recording clocks, even if there is a Doppler shift, and
- (iv)
- memory chips which can hold data acquired by the receiver.
Thus each clock is constructed like one of the GPS (Global Positioning
System) units orbiting the earth. Assuming no gravitation, one says
that the aggregate of recording clocks is in a state of ``free float''
(inertial motion) if the relative Doppler shift between each pair of
such clocks is fixed and constant in time. There is no Doppler
chirp. In other words, each recording clock measures (and stores in
its memory) spectral lines which are sharp. The sharper the measured
spectral lines the more closely the recording clocks are in a state of
free float.
From this swarm of freely floating recording clocks one now forms, by a
process of measurement omission, an equivalence class called an
``expanding free float frame''.
Subsections
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Up: RADIATION FROM VIOLENTLY ACCELERATED
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Ulrich Gerlach
2001-10-09