WHAT FORCES ACT IN RELATIVISTIC GYROSCOPE PRECESSION

The translation of the relativistic motion into the language of forces , proposed by the author (1995, Nuovo Cimento B 110 973), is employed to interpret the gyroscope precession in general relativity. The prece ssion is referred to the comoving Frenet triad built up along the proj ection of the gyroscope's trajectory onto the 3-space of the local hyp ersurface-orthogonal observer. The contributions of the centrifugal, t he gravitational and the dragging + Coriolis forces are identified res pectively with the Thomas, the geodetic, and the gravitomagnetic compo nents of precession. Explicit expressions are given for several simple types of motion in the Kerr (or simpler) field in order to show that the general formulae obtained are not only very simple, but also yield clear results in accord with intuition in concrete situations.