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Obviously with questions about the 1-way speed of light, I have an experiment in mind.

Say you have 2 wheels connected with an axle and you have slots around the edge of each wheel (the slots are aligned). you then send a laser through the slots, and spin the axle. If the light hits the second wheel shouldnt you be able to calculate the 1-way speed of light based on the length of the axle (between the wheels) and the revolutions per minute?

I feel like I must be missing something obvious, but wouldnt this avoid the need for 2 clocks?

Qmechanic
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Tess S
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1 Answers1

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Aligning the slots is indeed a problem. How do you spin the thing up? If you start from one side, then the slots are aligned if torque propagates down the axle FTL (c.f. Born Rigidity). OK, so you can spin up each wheel independently at a predetermined time with.... synchronized.....clocks. :-(

JEB
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