Barrie Tonkinson, “Clock time in relativity theory”

In this talk we will consider Special Relativity and General Relativity. In Special Relativity there is a single consideration which, above all others, is the heart of the theory. This is reciprocity – very briefly, the absolute equality of the inertial frames employed. We show that, so called , time dilation is reciprocally inconsistent and must be replaced by a consideriation of the Minkowski metric. This enables us to see that clock time disparity appears naturally owing to path difference. In General Relativity our concern will be the gravitational redshift. Resting on our SR work, there is again no no notion of clock slowing. We now employ free falling clocks to obtain proper time diferences, measuring the redshift.

Barrie Tonkinson has a backgound in aeronautics, specialising in aircraft stability and control. He joined Chelsea College (U.Lon.) in 1979 to take up a taught Masters in GR and QFT – subsequently moving to Heinz Post’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science. Member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Royal Institute of Navigation.

The chief idea of this talk first appeared in a Festschrift for Heinz (Boston Studies 1993) in collaboration with “life long” mentor Clive Kilmister.