Related papers: An Upper Bound for the Mass of Microscopic Clocks
Good clocks are of importance both to fundamental physics and for applications in astronomy, metrology and global positioning systems. In a recent technological breakthrough, researchers at NIST have been able to achieve a stability of 1…
In general relativity, the picture of spacetime assigns an ideal clock to each worldline. Being ideal, gravitational effects due to these clocks are ignored and the flow of time according to one clock is not affected by the presence of…
Einstein's theory of general relativity states that clocks at different gravitational potentials tick at different rates - an effect known as the gravitational redshift. As fundamental probes of space and time, atomic clocks have long…
Time measured by an ideal clock crucially depends on the gravitational potential and velocity of the clock according to general relativity. Technological advances in manufacturing high-precision atomic clocks have rapidly improved their…
We present a simple argument leading to a fundamental minimum uncertainty in the determination of times. It only relies in the uncertainty principle and time dilation in a gravitational field. It implies any attempt to measure times will…
We discuss time measurement in quantum gravity. Using general relativity for large distances and the uncertainty principle we find a minimum time interval of the order of the Planck time, therefore the uncertainty in time measurment is…
The difference in the proper azimuthal periods of revolution of two standard clocks in direct and retrograde orbits about a central rotating mass is proportional to J/Mc^2, where J and M are, respectively, the proper angular momentum and…
The notion of time is given a different footing in Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity, treated as a parameter in the former and being an observer dependent property in the later. From a operational point of view time is simply the…
In Gedankenexperiment mentioned in the title, the imprecision in space-time measurement is related to the spreading of clock's wave-function with the passage of time required for the measurement. Special relativity puts a bound on the…
Standard treatments of general relativity accept the gravitational slowing of clocks as a primary phenomenon, requiring no further analysis as to cause. Rejecting this attitude, I argue that one or more of the fundamental "constants"…
In Einstein's gedankenexperiment for measuring space and time, an ensemble of clocks moving through curved spacetime measures geometry by sending signals back and forth, as in the global positioning system (GPS). Combining well-known…
We show how a suitably prepared set of clocks can be used to determine all components of the gravitational field in General Relativity. We call such an experimental setup a clock compass, in analogy to the usual gravitational compass.…
General relativity predicts that two counter-orbiting clocks around a spinning mass differ in the time required to complete the same orbit. The difference in these two values for the orbital period is generally referred to as the…
We critically discuss the measure of very short time intervals. By means of a Gedankenexperiment, we describe an ideal clock based on the occurrence of completely random events. Many previous thought experiments have suggested fundamental…
One of geodesy's main tasks is to determine the gravity field of the Earth. High precision clocks have the potential to provide a new tool in a global determination of the Earth's gravitational potential based on the gravitational redshift.…
We discuss a limit for sensitivity of length measurements which is due to the effect of vacuum fluctuations of gravitational field. This limit is associated with irreducible quantum fluctuations of geodesic distances and it is characterized…
A proper time observable for a quantum clock is introduced and it is found that the proper time read by one clock conditioned on another clock reading a different proper time obeys classical time dilation in accordance with special…
The passage of time is tracked by counting oscillations of a frequency reference, such as Earth's revolutions or swings of a pendulum. By referencing atomic transitions, frequency (and thus time) can be measured more precisely than any…
General relativity predicts that clocks run more slowly near massive objects. The effect is small---a clock at sea level lags behind one 1000 m above sea level by only 9.4 ns/day. Here, we demonstrate that a measurement of this effect can…
Quantum mechanics and general relativity have been each successfully tested in numerous experiments. However, the regime where both theories are jointly required to explain physical phenomena remains untested by laboratory experiments, and…