| Abstract: | On the Rates of Advance of Clocks on the Rotating Earth In 1905 ALBERT EINSTEIN came from his Special Theory of Relativity to the conclusion that a “balance clock” located at the earth's equator is somewhat slowed down compared with a clock resting at one of the earth's poles P (see Fig. 2 below). But interestingly, this retardation of time is fully compensated by an opposing gravitational effect which (according to the General Theory of Relativity, discovered later by EINSTEIN, 1908 - 1915) causes all (atomic) clocks even at any point A on earth's surface at normal sea-level at arbitrary latitudes φ to advance at the same rate as the clock at the pole: The kinematic time-dilatation of a clock A moving with the velocity v of the earth's daily revolution around its axis turns out to be precisely equal in magnitude to the acceleration of the advance of the same clock A with respect to the clock at P due to the gravitational potential-difference between A and P, resulting from the ellipsoidal figure of the rotating earth. These two variations in the clock-rates, amounting relatively to  1/2 (v/c)2, where c denotes the velocity of light in vacuum, exactly cancel each other. Furthermore the so called clock-paradox and the Hafele-Keating-Experiment are rediscussed in a somewhat different way than usual. |
