Rates of moving clocks in the framework of the special theory of relativity

摘要

We analyze the widely spread statement that moving clocks go more slowly than those at rest. For purposes of clarifying this statement, we explicitly introduce the periods of clocks, which are absent in the Lorentz transformations. Due to this, the statement under consideration, based exclusively on the direct application of Lorentz transformations, is at least misleading, because it draws conclusions about some physical quantities from equations in which these quantities are not even mentioned. We show explicitly for the first time that in the presence of several different inertial reference frames, three at least, not all the corresponding, physically equivalent, clocks can have the same period. However, there are no physical possibilities whatsoever, which would allow one to find which of them is slower than the others, in any absolute sense.