THE ROLE OF SIMULTANEITY IN THE METHODOLOGY OF THE GLOBAL POSITIONING NAVIGATION SYSTEM

Abstract

The Global Positioning System (GPS) adjusts the rates of proper clocks carried onboard its satellites in order to obtain its high level of accuracy.  This procedure was first suggested on the basis of experimental data obtained by Hafele and Keating (ref.) which demonstrate the effects of time dilation on atomic clocks carried onboard circumnavigating airplanes.  There has been a longstanding belief among physicists that these clock-rate adjustments are consistent with the predictions of the Lorentz transformation (LT), but the present work shows that this is actually not the case.  The experience with GPS makes clear, for example, that there is a definite asymmetry in the clock rates that runs contrary to the LT predictions.  The strict proportionality assumed between the rates of proper clocks is also clear evidence of the absolute remote simultaneity of events, which again stands in contradiction to what must be inferred from the LT.  An alternative version of the Lorentz transformation exists which takes into account the above proportionality relation (t’=t/Q) while still satisfying both of Einstein’s postulates of relativity.  It can rightly be called the GPS-LT because it is completely consistent with the adjusted clock-rate procedure.  On this basis a method is devised for modifying the rates of proper atomic clocks onboard orbiting satellites as a function of their position and velocity relative to the earth’s center of mass (ECM) so as to insure that they continuously run at the same rate as a standard clock on the earth’s surface.