Special relativity (alternative formulations)

About: Special relativity (alternative formulations) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3102 publications have been published within this topic receiving 55015 citations.

Voigt transformations in retrospect: missed opportunities?

Abstract: The teaching of modern physics often uses the history of physics as a didactic tool. However, as in this process the history of physics is not something studied but used, there is a danger that the history itself will be distorted in, as Butterfield calls it, a “Whiggish” way, when the present becomes the measure of the past. It is not surprising that reading today a paper written more than a hundred years ago, we can extract much more of it than was actually thought or dreamed by the author himself. We demonstrate this Whiggish approach on the example of Woldemar Voigt’s 1887 paper. From the modern perspective, it may appear that this paper opens a way to both the special relativity and to its anisotropic Finslerian generalization which came into the focus only recently, in relation with the Cohen and Glashow’s very special relativity proposal. With a little imagination, one can connect Voigt’s paper to the notorious Einstein-Poincare priority dispute, which we believe is a Whiggish late time artifact. We use the related historical circumstances to give a broader view on special relativity, than it is usually anticipated.

On special relativity teaching using modern experimental data

Abstract: A new methodological approach to the study of relativistic space-time properties is proposed based on the 20th century's vast experimental research on relativistic accelerator and cosmic ray particles. This approach vividly demonstrates that relativistic effects are the manifestation of fundamental space-time properties and refutes the false notion that relativity is only of relevance to light phenomena.

Anisotropic spheres with uniform energy density in bimetric theory of relativity

Abstract: In this paper we have obtained interior solutions of the field equations for anisotropic sphere in the bimetric general relativity theory formulated by Rosen (Lett. Nuovo Cimento 25, 1979). A class of solutions for a uniform energy-density source of the field equations is presented. The analytic solutions obtained are physically reasonable, well behaved in the interior of the sphere. The solutions agree with the Einstein’s general relativity for a physical system compared to the size of the universe such as the solar system.

A Spacetime Symmetry Approach to Relativistic Quantum Multi-Particle Entanglement

Abstract: A Lorentz transformation group SO(m, n) of signature (m, n), m, n ∈ N, in m time and n space dimensions, is the group of pseudo-rotations of a pseudo-Euclidean space of signature (m, n). Accordingly, the Lorentz group SO(1, 3) is the common Lorentz transformation group from which special relativity theory stems. It is widely acknowledged that special relativity and quantum theories are at odds. In particular, it is known that entangled particles involve Lorentz symmetry violation. We, therefore, review studies that led to the discovery that the Lorentz group SO(m, n) forms the symmetry group by which a multi-particle system of m entangled n-dimensional particles can be understood in an extended sense of relativistic settings. Consequently, we enrich special relativity by incorporating the Lorentz transformation groups of signature (m, 3) for all m ≥ 2. The resulting enriched special relativity provides the common symmetry group SO(1, 3) of the (1 + 3)-dimensional spacetime of individual particles, along with the symmetry group SO(m, 3) of the (m + 3)-dimensional spacetime of multi-particle systems of m entangled 3-dimensional particles, for all m ≥ 2. A unified parametrization of the Lorentz groups SO(m, n) for all m, n ∈ N, shakes down the underlying matrix algebra into elegant and transparent results. The special case when (m, n) = (1, 3) is supported experimentally by special relativity. It is hoped that this review article will stimulate the search for experimental support when (m, n) = (m, 3) for all m ≥ 2.