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Equation 9 · Part 2 · The Bend an Elevator Cannot Fake

derivative

∂/∂t\partial/\partial t
derivative

What this part means

This notation tracks how one quantity changes with another. The indicated variable tells which change is being measured.

Its job in the formula

This notation tracks how one quantity changes with another. The indicated variable tells which change is being measured.

The passage around this formula

For a static observer at position x\mathbf x in a stationary spacetime, define U(x\mathbf x) := dτ\tau/dt , the local rate of proper time relative to coordinate time. Two clocks compared through any phase-coherent link that depends only on their respective proper frequencies report the ratio νj\nu_j/νi\nu_i = U(xj\mathbf x_j)/U(xi\mathbf x_i) — a fact about stationary spacetimes that follows from the timelike Killing vector generating t -translations, and one on which the standard treatments of relativity in a geodetic or navigational setting already rely [ 10 , 14 ] . The dependence on endpoints only, never on the path connecting them, is not an approximation: because ∂\partial/∂\partial t generates a…

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Learn the underlying idea

A derivative describes how quickly one quantity changes as another changes. It is the slope of a curve at a particular point.

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