Einstein's equivalence principle and the gravitational

red shift

Source: https://www.maths.tcd.ie/report_series/abstracts/tcdm1111.html Parent: https://www.maths.tcd.ie/research/papers/

Einstein's equivalence principle and the gravitational red shift

Long before the general theory of relativity was finally formulated in 1916, arguments based entirely on Einstein's equivalence principle predicted the well known phenomenon of the gravitational red shift. Precisely the same argu- ments are widely being used today to derive the same phenomenon. Accordingly, it is often claimed that the observed gravitational red shift is a verification of the equivalence principle rather than a verification of the full theory of general relativity. Here we show that, contrary to these claims, the arguments based on the equivalence principle are false and that only the full theory of general relativity can correctly and unambiguously predict the gravitational red shift.