Wednesday, 30 January 2008

Gravity and GPS Clock Speeds

Watched the Horizon programme "What on Earth is Wrong with Gravity?" last night. There was an interesting bit in it about GPS clocks and how gravity effects them. I must confess, particle physics is not my forte (to put it mildly!) and I got a bit lost with Einstein, time dilation and curved space time. My science teacher husband was engrossed, but I had a bit more background to assimilate before I really 'got' the issue with time and gravity.

Found this blog earlier which had a fascinating debate about GPS clock rates. I sort of kept up with the flow initially but lost it once red shifts came into play. I'm sure it's quite straight-forward really; it's just something I've never really thought about.

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