English

Noun

proper acceleration ‎(plural proper accelerations)

1. (physics) The acceleration felt by an object, as opposed to the coordinate acceleration. For example the acceleration of an object at the surface of the Earth is 9.81 m/s^2 upwards, but has no coordinate acceleration. The proper acceleration of an object is Lorentz invariant.

References

• Edwin F. Taylor & John Archibald Wheeler (1966 1st ed. only) Spacetime Physics (W.H. Freeman, San Francisco) ISBN 0-7167-0336-X, Chapter 1 Exercise 51 page 97-98: "Clock paradox III" (pdf).