Locating Absolute Rest with Clocks instead of Photons
A position of absolute rest can be located in a general way by measuring Doppler effects within the 2.7 CBR. A critic might say that the whole CBR might be moving and that the position of absolute rest for photons might be different than the position of rest for matter. There is a way of measuring for the position of absolute rest for matter that uses clocks rather than any direct use of photons.
Consider a spacecraft that is moving at a high velocity but has lost its direction and wants of find its way back to absolute rest. The pilot could look out the window and measure the Doppler shifts in the CBR but that would just give him the position of photon rest that might be different from matter’s position of rest. Instead, he synchronizes his atomic clock to six pulsars in the six approximate directions of left, right, backward, forward, up and down. All six pulsars can be considered as clocks that are beating at different but constant rates. For the purposes of this experiment, we will say that the pulsars average 1000 pulses per sec and together they produce exactly a constant 6000 beats per sec.
To find his way back to rest, the pilot must first accelerate in some random direction. If the ship is accelerating to a higher velocity its clock will slow down and if the ship is decelerating, its clock will speed up. This rate change cannot be detected locally but can measured by monitoring the combined rates of the six pulsars. Individual pulsar pulse rates will change as the ship moves faster away from and faster towards them. However, the sum of all six pulsar rates will remain a constant 6000 beats/sec no matter in what direction the ship accelerates. Thus, by measuring the differing rates between the ship’s clock and the combined rates of the pulsar clocks, the pilot can navigate back to a position of absolute rest by “accelerating” in the direction that causes the ship’s clock to run faster than the pulsar clocks.
The ship’s clock will speed up as it loses velocity while the combined rate of the six pulsars will remain constant. Absolute rest is reached when the onboard clock is running at a maximum and any further change in motion causes it to run slower than the pulsar clocks.
Once this position of absolute rest is located for matter, the pilot can then measure for Doppler shifts in the 2.7° CBR to see if the position of rest for photons is the same as the position of rest for matter.