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EXPANDING INERTIAL OBSERVATION FRAME

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
next up previous
Next: Construction Up: RADIATION FROM VIOLENTLY ACCELERATED Previous: INTRODUCTION
Ulrich Gerlach 2001-10-09