Is the time dilation suffered by clocks in GPS satellites accurate to what is predicted by special relativity? By "accurate" I mean to ask if the numerical answer given by relativity equations match exactly with the actual time dilation suffered by satellite clocks?
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
4
-
3$\begingroup$ There are actually two effects at play here: the special relativity induced time dilation due to the relative velocity of the satellite, and the decrease in gravitationally induced time dilation (described by general relativity) due to the increased height above Earth. The net effect is that the satellite clock is actually faster by 38 microseconds per day. There's a nice piece here: astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html $\endgroup$– 13509Sep 22, 2019 at 21:21
-
$\begingroup$ Your GPS wouldn't work otherwise. Position errors would be huge. $\endgroup$– AtmosphericPrisonEscapeSep 22, 2019 at 23:08
-
1$\begingroup$ Related: physics.stackexchange.com/q/1061/123208 physics.stackexchange.com/q/333034/123208 Also see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… which has a nice graph showing GR & SR effects at different altitudes. $\endgroup$– PM 2RingSep 23, 2019 at 3:54
-
1$\begingroup$ Possible duplicate of Why does GPS depend on relativity? $\endgroup$– PM 2RingSep 23, 2019 at 3:55
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
Yes. Before the satellites were even launched, the frequencies of their radio signals were intentionally detuned by the time-averaged amount predicted by relativity. It's not just a special-relativistic effect. There is also a general-relativistic effect.