Comment by toast0
3 hours ago
That forms a basis for the difficulty. But then there's additional layers of difficulty in real networks where the path between nodes is often asymmetric, and you may also observe that elapsed time (A -> B -> A) is sometimes greater than elapsed time (A -> C -> B -> C -> A) or (A -> C -> B -> A) or (A -> B -> C -> A)
Doesn't each node just need to know its exact path (or latency of same) to the time source each is synchronizing from? The path from node to node doesn't matter because we're ordering log entries from the timestamp of the receiving node.
Imagine you take three atomic clocks, synchronize them, and move each within exactly 1 meter of one of those nodes, directly connected in an identical manner. Relativistic effects are constant. If there are elevation differences, you factor it once and done. The problem with this setup is not relativity. It is quantum uncertainty (and various interference sources, thermal radiation, etc).