Born Coordinates - Summary

Summary

Observers riding on a rigidly rotating disk will conclude from measurements of small distances between themselves that the geometry of the disk is non-Euclidean. Regardless of which method they use, they will conclude that the geometry is well approximated by a certain Riemannian metric, namely the Langevin-Landau-Lifschitz metric. This is in turn very well approximated by the geometry of the hyperbolic plane (with the constant negative curvature -3 ω2). But if these observers measure larger distances, they will obtain different results, depending upon which method of measurement they use! In all such cases, however, they will most likely obtain results which are inconsistent with any Riemannian metric. In particular, if they use the simplest notion of distance, radar distance, owing to various effects such as the asymmetry already noted, they will conclude that the "geometry" of the disk is not only non-Euclidean, it is non-Riemannian.

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