The Relativity Principle and the Kinetic Scaling of the Units of Energy, Time and Length Robert J. Buenker1 1Fachbereich C-Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Gaussstr. 20, D-42097 Wuppertal, Germany e-mail:
[email protected] Abstract The special theory of relativity (STR) has successfully predicted that proper clocks run more slowly as their speed relative to an observer on the earth’s surface increases. A straightforward means of describing this phenomenon is to assume that the unit of time varies from one inertial system to another. A key theoretical assumption that has been verified by means of experiments with airplanes and satellites is that all clocks in a given rest system slow down in exactly the same proportion (Q) when they are accelerated, thereby making it impossible to observe any change in their rates on the basis of exclusively in situ measurements, consistent with the relativity principle (RP). The same line of argumentation leads to a similar conclusion for in situ length measurements, since any change in the distance between two objects co-moving with an observer must be matched by a strictly proportional change in the standard device employed to measure it. It is argued on this basis that the unit of length must vary with the state of motion in the same proportion Q as that of time in order for the speed of light to be constant for all observers (Einstein’s second postulate of STR). The use of such a (rational) set of units in each rest frame requires that a different space-time transformation (Global Positioning System-Lorentz transformation GPS-LT) be introduced into relativity theory than that given by Einstein in his original work.