English

Getting the Lorentz transformations without requiring an invariant speed

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2015-06-24 v1

Abstract

The structure of the Lorentz transformations follows purely from the absence of privileged inertial reference frames and the group structure (closure under composition) of the transformations---two assumptions that are simple and physically necessary. The existence of an invariant speed is \textit{not} a necessary assumption, and in fact is a consequence of the principle of relativity (though the finite value of this speed must, of course, be obtained from experiment). Von Ignatowsky derived this result in 1911, but it is still not widely known and is absent from most textbooks. Here we present a completely elementary proof of the result, suitable for use in an introductory course in special relativity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1504.02423,
  title  = {Getting the Lorentz transformations without requiring an invariant speed},
  author = {A. Pelissetto and M. Testa},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1504.02423},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

4 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-06-22T09:13:44.164Z