From: utzoo!utcsrgv!thomson
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: Re: Clock Problem
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.915
Posted: Fri Jan 21 13:29:20 1983
Received: Fri Jan 21 14:27:16 1983
References: ucbvax.628

Wayne Christopher claims that special relativity is not applicable to
the soon-to-be-famous "whirling digital clock" problem because the clock
(display) is accelerated.  SR requires only that the OBSERVER be in a
local inertial frame, if the clock hypothesis is accepted (i.e. that time
dilation effects depend only on instantaneous velocities, not on 
acceleration) and this hypothesis has been verified for very large
accelerations.  SR is certainly applicable, and if the whole clock
were whirled rather than just the display it would indeed run slow.