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The meaning of time in the theory of relativity and “Einstein's later view of the Twin Paradox”

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Abstract

The purpose of the present paper is to reply to a misleading paper by M. Sachs entitled “Einstein's later view of the Twin Paradox” (TP) (Found. Phys. 15, 977 (1985)). There, by selecting some passages from Einstein's papers, he tried to convince the reader that Einstein changed his mind regarding the asymmetric aging of the twins on different motions. Also Sachs insinuates that he presented several years ago “convincing mathematical arguments” proving that the theory of relativity does not predict asymmetrical aging in the TP. Here we give a definitive treatment to the clocks problem showing that Sachs' “convincing mathematical arguments” are non sequitur. Also, by properly quoting Einstein, we show that his later view of the TP coincides with the one derived from the rigorous theory of time developed in this paper.

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Rodrigues, W.A., Rosa, M.A.F. The meaning of time in the theory of relativity and “Einstein's later view of the Twin Paradox”. Found Phys 19, 705–724 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00731906

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00731906

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