Comments on the Hafele-Keating Experiment

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Abstract
Salient features of the Hafele-Keating test of relativistic clock-rate changes are presented; these changes were for cesium atomic clocks which had been flown around the world, once eastward and once westward, on approximately equatorial paths. An inconsistency for an earth observer, between equal energy but different time rates for eastward and westward moving clocks, is shown to be removed if the Sagnac effect is taken into account in the synchronization of clocks in the earth reference system. Also, it is shown that an atomic clock's directional relativistic loss (gain) for an eastward (westward) circumpolar journey is velocity independent. The observed relativistic time effects may be derived as general-relativistic changes, leaving the question of special-relativistic kinetic effects on a macroscopic clock an open one empirically.

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