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The ‘Clock Paradox’ of Relativity

Abstract

IT would be inappropriate to give here an additional derivation of the asymmetrical relative ageing of twin brothers predicted by relativity theory for the familiar round trip. In his first paper on relativity, A. Einstein derives the well-known result1; he does not, as claimed by Prof. H. Dingle, make a “regrettable error”2. The recent derivation by W. H. McCrea3 emphasizes that the Lorentz transformation of special relativity is sufficient to describe the round trip from the point of view of either twin, provided that one retains the usual central role assigned by Einstein to “a system of co-ordinates in which the equations of Newtonian mechanics hold good (that is, to the first approximation)”4.

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References

  1. Einstein, A., Ann. Physik., 17, 891 (1905). See sec. 4. All the publications of Albert Einstein to which I refer in this article are found in English translation in the recently republished book by H. Lorentz, A. Einstein, H. Minkowski and H. Weyl, “The Principle of Relativity” (Dover Publications, Inc.).

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  2. Dingle, H., Nature, 177, 782 (1956).

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CRAWFORD, F. The ‘Clock Paradox’ of Relativity. Nature 179, 1071–1072 (1957). https://doi.org/10.1038/1791071a0

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