Gravity and acceleration

An observer that is stationary with respect to a gravitational body feels constant proper acceleration over time. YOu would have to show that the effect you describe would be observed by an observer that experiences constant proper acceleration due to artificial acceleration in order to support your argument.

Could you also make it clear if by "clocks appear to move backward" you meant clocks appear to tick backwards showing time reversal or if you meant clocks literally move or recede away from the observer.

 

Well the equivalent situation would be a stationary observer in a gravitational field on the top of a tall tower that drops a long rod with clocks attached to it so that the rod is free falling. That is what you would have to analyse.

It is not the usual situation of a stationary observer in gravitational field observing that are stationary with respect to him but at different altitudes.

You will also have to make it clear that whether you mean the observer would literally see one of the clocks running backwards in time or just calculates that the clock is running backwards in time if he could see it.

You should probably draw some sort of Minkowski space/time diagram to illustrate what you mean. It can be shown that observers accelerate in a rocket will see an artificial event horizon behind them and if they "drop" an object it will fall behind the horizon and they will no longer be able to see it until they stop accelerating. It is likely that the observer you describe "sees" some clock as running backwards he will actually see some sort of event horizon where the clocks change from running forward to running backwards so he will not actually be able to see the clcoks running backwards, but only be able to calculate or imagine that they are running backwards.

However, I can show that relativity predicts that a clock low down in a strong gravitational field will be running backwards relative to a clock high up in the gravity field and I am not talking about a massive body that is so dense that it is a black hole. Whether the high observer will actually see the low clock running backwards depends on how light travels in a zone where time is running backwards and also on how mass and gravity behave in a negative time zone. That area is not well explored.

 

That's news to me. Where did you get this idea from? I never heard of it before myself. Thanks.

Pete

 

You are not describing a physical effect; you are describing a coordinate effect. (The fact that you're using the word 'synchronized' should be a big clue)

 

Earth is a good example, if you are stationary above the Earth then anything above you will appear to run faster and anything below you will appear to run slower.

 

I think he is simply mistaken, time does obviously not run backward in acceleration scenarios.

 

I'm saying phrases like:
"distant clocks to appear to move backwards"
"synchronized clocks"
"stationary observer"
"clocks will become more and more out of synch"

have no physical meaning, and there is no such thing as an "observer's point of view". There are only coordinate charts, and how things look relative to a coordinate chart.

That means if your observer uses the same method to 'correct for time of flight of the light from the clock', he will get the same result in either circumstance.


Incidentally, the equivalence principle is only assumed to work on small scales.

 

Clocks behind him will not run backwards. They will simply run slower, which is quite different.

Any gravitational field for which the time-time component of the metric tensor has different values at the different locations.

 

"Time running backwards" refers to the situation when, in a coordinate chart, the reading on a clock runs in the opposite direction than its time coordinate.

One of the conventions¹ in special relativity for choosing a coordinate chart² in which a noninertial observer is stationary has this feature.


1: I emphasize this word for the original poster's sake
2: Actually a mild generalization of the notion of coordinate chart; the convention I'm referring to allows multiple coordinate-tuples to refer to the same event in space-time.

 

I'm confused; physical quantities are, by definition, frame independent. Time dilation, for example, is not a physical quantity. (Of course, the proper time experienced by an observer between two specified events in space-time is a physical quantity)

 

What does "stationary" mean? What does "synchronized" mean?

What does "appear out of sync" mean?


I'm not trying to be argumentative; I really believe that either:
1. You do not know what those terms really mean, and have developed a malformed intuition for them that impairs your understanding
2. You do know what those terms mean, but you are being sloppy and haven't thought it through, and have made mistakes