2009/05/12 by Joseph West, J. West, West, J.
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Classical Physics (physics.class-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Geophysics and Sensor Technology #Popular Physics (physics.pop-ph) #Teleoperation and Haptic Systems #physics.class-ph #physics.pop-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0905.1859
12 pages, 4 figures, submitted to The American Journal of Physics
arxiv created 2009/05/12 · openalex publication_date 2009/05/12 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The time dilation of non-inertial travelers in circular and polygonal closed paths are well known. In both cases observers completing a round trip will age less than an observer at rest with respect to the circle / polygon. This rapid aging is contrary to the slow aging that would be documented by temporarily comoving inertial observers who might also move along each edge of the polygon. A detailed description of what the non-inertial observer might actually see that would explain their own slow aging is presented. It is also argued that the non-inertial observer will disagree with the comoving inertial observers about the size of the diameter of the polygon. In particular, the non-inertial traveler will observer a Lorentz-like contraction of distances measured perpendicular to the direction of relative motion. As a result, the traveler will obtain a value of for the ratio of circumference to diameter, in contradiction to recently published work that predicts a measured ratio less than and a non-Euclidean geometry for the polygon traveler.