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From: physics@utcs.UUCP (David Harrison)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Experimental verification of General Relativity
Message-ID: <550@utcs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Mar-85 05:26:45 EST
Article-I.D.: utcs.550
Posted: Mon Mar 25 05:26:45 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 25-Mar-85 06:14:49 EST
References: <159@ihlpa.UUCP>
Reply-To: physics@utcs.UUCP (David Harrison)
Distribution: net
Organization: University of Toronto - General Purpose UNIX
Lines: 16
Summary: 

For an everyday experimental verification of GR, Hafele and
Keating flew Cesium beam atomic clocks around the world on
commerical jetliners in the early '70s. One clock went East,
one went West, and one "stayed home" [like the third little
piggie].  There is a special relativity factor due to the motion,
and a general relativity factor because of the altitude of the
flights.  Because of the Earth's rotation the spec. rel. factor
is different for the moving clocks; in fact in an inertial frame
the West one is the most stationary.  The predicted and measured
results were discrepancies of from about 50 to about 250 
nanoseconds relative to the earth clock.
The work was published in Phys. Rev. Letters.
		David Harrison
		Dept. of Physics
		Univ. of Toronto
		...!utzoo!utcs!physics