Related papers: Voigt transformations in retrospect: missed opport…
In 1887 Woldemar Voigt published the paper "On Doppler's Principle," in which he demanded covariance to the homogeneous wave equation in inertial reference frames, assumed the invariance of the speed of light in these frames, and obtained a…
This paper provides a systematic response to the criticisms raised by Jean-Marc Ginoux in response to my review of his book on the history of relativity. Whereas my review was written in a strictly academic manner, Ginoux's commentary…
.This article reexamines the genesis of special relativity by situating the contributions of Lorentz, Poincare, and Einstein within the scientific, documentary, and editorial context of the years 1895--1913. It emphasizes the rapid…
Henri Poincare's work on mathematical features of the Lorentz transformations was an important precursor to the development of special relativity. In this paper I compare the approaches taken by Poincare and Einstein, aiming to come to an…
This work deals with the questions of absolute space and relativity. In particular, an alternative derivation of the effects described by special relativity is provided, which is based on a description that assumes a privileged reference…
A century after its formulation by Einstein, it is time to incorporate special relativity early in the physics curriculum. The approach advocated here employs a simple algebraic extension of vector formalism that generates Minkowski…
Starting from a suggestion of Einstein on the construction of the concept of space, we elaborate an intrinsic method to obtain space and time transformations between two inertial spaces of reference, mathematically modeled as affine…
A detailed re-examination of the seminal paper on special relativity, taking into account recent work on the physical interpretation of the space-time Lorentz transformation as well as the modern understanding of classical elecromagnetism…
This paper completes and comments on some aspects of our previous publications. In ref [1], we have derived a set of space-time transformations referred to as the extended space-time transformations. These transformations, which assume the…
It is known that Einstein's conceptual base for his theory of relativity was the philosophy formulated by Immanuel Kant. Things appear differently to observers in different frames. However, Kant's Ding-an-Sich leads to the existence of the…
Jean-Marc Ginoux's recent book, "Poincar\'e, Einstein and the Discovery of Special Relativity: An End to the Controversy" (2024), seeks to close the debate over the respective roles of Poincar\'e and Einstein. Yet what is presented as an…
In a comparison of the principles of special relativity and of quantum mechanics, the former theory is marked by its relative economy and apparent explanatory simplicity. A number of theorists have thus been led to search for a small number…
Heisenberg's uncertainty relation means that one observer cannot know an exact position and velocity for another (finite mass) observer. By contrast, the Poincare transformation of classical special relativity assumes that one observer…
Special relativity is no longer a new revolutionary theory but a firmly established cornerstone of modern physics. The teaching of special relativity, however, still follows its presentation as it unfolded historically, trying to convince…
Experiment plays a decisive role in physics. It is the single source of our understanding of nature. But, during the last century the main accent in theoretical physics has moved toward metaphysics. Some mathematicians/theoreticians try to…
The unification of electricity and magnetism achieved by special relativity has remained for decades a model of unification in theoretical physics. We discuss the relationship between electric and magnetic fields from a classical point of…
A goal of physics is to understand the greatest possible breadth of natural phenomena in terms of the most economical set of basic concepts. However, as the understanding of physics has developed historically, its pedagogy and language have…
The Poincar\'e-Snyder relativity was introduced in an earlier paper of ours as an extended form of Einstein relativity obtained by appropriate limiting setting of the full Quantum Relativity. The latter, with fundamental constants $\hbar$…
The special theory of relativity has fundamentally changed our views of space and time. The relativity of simultaneity in particular, and the theory of relativity as a whole, still presents significant difficulty for beginners in the…
This paper reconstructs the derivations underlying the kinematical part of Einstein's 1905 special relativity paper, emphasizing their operational clarity and minimalist use of mathematics. Einstein employed modest tools-algebraic…