The Hafele-Keating experiment, velocity and length interval transformations and resolution of the Ehrenfest paradox

Abstract

A relativistic analysis based on the paths, in a non-rotating frame comoving with the centroid of the Earth, of clocks carried by aircraft circumnavigating the Earth in different directions, as in the Hafele-Keating experiment, predicts time differences between airborne and Earth-bound clocks at variance with the results of the experiment. The latter imply new relativistic velocity transformations differing from the conventional ones. These transformations demonstrate in turn the invariance of length intervals on the surface of the rotating Earth and so resolve the Ehrenfest paradox for this case.