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The way I have always viewed it, GPS does provide empirical validation of Relativity because it is possible to know the clock speed at the satellites and compare it to atomic clocks running on earth, and the difference in the speeds of the clocks does indeed match what is predicted by Einstein's equations.
originally posted by: Phage
A bit assbackwards. The rate at which the clocks on the satellites run is the same as that as the rate at which clocks on Earth run because they are set (before launch) to run slow. Not doing so would further complicate some already complex calculations even further because, on orbit, they would be running faster. This makes it all somewhat more "simple."
www.aapt.org...
Coincidentally, that pre-launch adjustment uses Einstein's equations. So, maybe he was wrong but I would like to be wrong like that more often.
originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Greggers
My point was that, contrary to what you said, the clocks on the satellites run at the same rate as those on the ground. Through forethought. The designers knew it was problematic and came up with a solution.
Without that prelaunch adjustment, positional calculations would be more nightmarish than they are with. As the paper I linked shows, time dilation is only a part of it.
That would be true. Without ground based updates. Which there are.
It seems to suggest that an earth based clock is involved in the positioning calculations, and furthermore goes on to describe how the entire GPS system would become completely unusable within a very short amount of time if the clocks weren't programmed to account for relativistic differences between earth and orbit