11. C. Y. Lo, The Principle of General Relativity, the Restriction to Covariance, and Stanford's Experiment Gravity Probe‐B

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Volume 18: Pages 112-124, 2005

The Principle of General Relativity, the Restriction to Covariance, and Stanford's Experiment Gravity ProbeB

C. Y. Lo

Applied and Pure Research Institute, 17 Newcastle Drive, Nashua, New Hampshire 03060 U.S.A.

It is shown that Einstein's “principle of covariance” has no theoretical basis in physics or observational support beyond what is allowed by the principle of general relativity. Theoretically, Einstein's equivalence principle actually implies that Einstein's physical space has a frame of reference that necessarily has the Euclideanlike structure and a time coordinate such that the time rate is related to the local clocks. Thus Zhou's experiment on local light speeds correctly challenges Einstein's “principle of covariance.” Examples are provided to support Einstein's equivalence principle and the MaxwellNewton approximation (MNA), but reject unrestricted covariance on the grounds of observation. The binary pulsar experiments actually have rejected the Schwarzschild solution. Moreover, since the MNA and the Kerr metric lead to distinct de Sitter precession formulas for Stanford's experiment, Gravity ProbeB, the claim of gauge invariance is invalid in the first order. This shows unequivocally that Einstein's “principle of covariance” is invalid in physics.

Keywords: Einstein's equivalence principle, Euclideanlike structure, principle of causality, local light speeds, Schwarzschild solution, binary pulsar experiment, physical space

Received: November 22, 2004; Published online: December 15, 2008