What do light clocks say to us regarding the so-called clock hypothesis?

• Autor(a) principal: Valente, Mario Bacelar
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/108067; https://doi.org/10.1387/theoria.18143
• topic: light clock; proper time; clock hypothesis; relativity; reloj de luz; tiempo propio; hipótesis del reloj; relatividad

The clock hypothesis is taken to be an assumption independent of special relativity necessary to describe accelerated clocks. This enables to equate the time read off by a clock to the proper time. Here, it is considered a physical system—the light clock—proposed by Marzke and Wheeler. Recently, Fletcher proved a theorem that shows that a sufficiently small light clock has a time reading that approximates to an arbitrary degree the proper time. The clock hypothesis is not necessary to arrive at this result. Here, one explores the consequences of this regarding the status of the clock hypothesis. It is argued in this work that there is no need for the clock hypothesis in the special theory of relativity.