Changes

182 bytes added ,  04:54, August 2, 2007
→‎Evidence for Relativity: clarified relativity claim re: GPS
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:"The Operational Control System (OCS) of the Global Positioning System (GPS) does not include the rigorous transformations between coordinate systems that Einstein's general theory of relativity would seem to require - transformations to and from the individual space vehicles (SVs), the Monitor Stations (MSs), and the users on the surface of the rotating earth, and the geocentric Earth Centered Inertial System (ECI) in which the SV orbits are calculated.  There is a very good reason for the omission: the effects of relativity, where they are different from the effects predicted by classical mechanics and electromagnetic theory, are too small to matter - less than one centimeter, for users on or near the earth."<ref>http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/ptti/1996/Vol%2028_16.pdf</ref><ref>Some do claim that relativity is "vital" to GPS even though GPS developed independently of theoretical predictions and theoreticians disagree about how the relativistic effects for GPS should be calculated.  ''See id.  See also'' [http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR614/MR614.appb.pdf]</ref>
 
:"The Operational Control System (OCS) of the Global Positioning System (GPS) does not include the rigorous transformations between coordinate systems that Einstein's general theory of relativity would seem to require - transformations to and from the individual space vehicles (SVs), the Monitor Stations (MSs), and the users on the surface of the rotating earth, and the geocentric Earth Centered Inertial System (ECI) in which the SV orbits are calculated.  There is a very good reason for the omission: the effects of relativity, where they are different from the effects predicted by classical mechanics and electromagnetic theory, are too small to matter - less than one centimeter, for users on or near the earth."<ref>http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/ptti/1996/Vol%2028_16.pdf</ref><ref>Some do claim that relativity is "vital" to GPS even though GPS developed independently of theoretical predictions and theoreticians disagree about how the relativistic effects for GPS should be calculated.  ''See id.  See also'' [http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR614/MR614.appb.pdf]</ref>
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The article goes on to give the formulas for relativistic corrections that had to be used for GPS to give acceptable accuracy in the GPS receivers that are in common use today.
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This article, which was published in 1996, goes on to propose relativistic corrections that might be used to design more accurate GPS systems.  However, there is no published confirmation that any functioning GPS system actually relies on relativistic predictions, and no physicist has even claimed to have used relativity in designing an actual GPS system.  
    
Some internet articles claim that GPS timing differences ''confirm'' the [[Theory of Relativity]] or its Lorentzian counterpart (which uses a preferred frame of reference). There is no Newtonian explanation for the GPS timing differences.
 
Some internet articles claim that GPS timing differences ''confirm'' the [[Theory of Relativity]] or its Lorentzian counterpart (which uses a preferred frame of reference). There is no Newtonian explanation for the GPS timing differences.
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