Clock synchronization with a 3-clock system

Iyer, Chandru and Prabhu, G. M. (2006) Clock synchronization with a 3-clock system. Technical Report 06-26, Computer Science, Iowa State University.

Abstract

Observed from an inertial frame K, a moving clock m appears to run slow. However, a co-moving inertial frame, attached with the moving clock, observes that the clocks in K are asynchronous as well as slowing down. The transformation of event coordinates from K to M and the inverse of that transformation are symmetric and in fact identical if we reverse the direction of the spatial coordinate axis. This implies that K and M are equivalent and therefore the clocks in K and M are also equivalent. In this paper we attempt to synchronize two clocks m and n in relative motion using a third clock k, and test the synchronicity of m and n when they meet. The clocks can also be imagined as intersecting traces on the space-time continuum.