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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…
We take causality and uniqueness of events observation as our driving forces. They are built in in the way we define distinct observers, which then require a finite time to communicate between each other. This unavoidably leads to the…
We correct an error that occurs with certain frequency in popular literature of Special Relativity, namely that supposedly that mass of moving objects depends on the relative velocity of the object and the observer. In this pedagogical…
We give a brief critical examination of the special theory of relativity and a similar Newtonian framework to the first order of the $v/c$ ratio, focusing on the phenomena of aberration, Fresnel dragging, and the Doppler effect. We will…
One of the concepts of Relativity theory that challenges conventional intuition the most is time dilation and length contraction. Usual approaches for describing relativistic effects in quantum systems merely postulate the consequences of…
According to conventional wisdom, presentism is at odds with the theory of relativity. This is supposed to be shown quite simply just by considering the relativity of simultaneity. In this paper I will show that conventional wisdom is…
An approach to special relativity is outlined which emphasizes the wave and field mechanisms which physically produce the relativistic effects, with the goal of making them seem more natural to students by connecting more explicitly with…
The importance of a teaching a clear definition of the ``observer'' in special relativity is highlighted using a simple astrophysical example from the exciting current research area of ``Gamma-Ray Burst'' astrophysics. The example shows…
The effect of stellar aberration seems to be one of the simplest phenomena in astronomical observations. But there is a large literature about it betraying a problem of asymmetry between observer motion and source motion. This paper…
Aims: we propose that the condition of relative motion between us and the objects that we observe in the Universe should generate relativistic aberration on the photons that such objects emit, varying the observed flux similarly to the…
We conclude that Special relativity effects are caused by a period of acceleration in the past, before they are measure in uniform velocity. This can be regarded as extension of the equivalence principle of General Relativity.We define the…
In non relativistic physics it is assumed that both chronological ordering and causal ordering of events (telling whether there exists a causal relationship between two events or not) are absolute, observer independent properties. In…
A long-standing tradition, largely present in both the physical and the philosophical literature, regards the advent of (special) relativity -- with its block-universe picture -- as the failure of any indeterministic program in physics. On…
It continues to be alleged that superluminal influences of any sort would be inconsistent with special relativity for the following three reasons: (i) they would imply the existence of a distinguished' frame; (ii) they would allow the…
It is proved by means of the dynamical effects of special relativity that velocity caused by accelerating process is not a relative concept. The influence of accelerating process should be considered in space-time theory. Besides the…
General relativity provides an appropriate framework for addressing the issue of sub- or superluminality as an apparent effect. Even though a massless particle travels on the light cone, its average velocity over a finite path measured by…
Keeping the relativistic laws of motion a non-conventional Pioneer effect would prove an increase of the scale rate of atomic clocks in comparison with planetary ones. Together with a slowly decreasing amount of about 60% due to anisotropic…
A new relativistic transformation in the velocity space (here named the differential Lorentz transformation) is formulated solely from the principle of relativity and the invariance of the speed of light. The differential Lorentz…
We present the special theory of relativity taking the Doppler effect as the starting point, and derive several of its main effects, such as time dilation, length contraction, addition of velocities, and the mass-energy relation, and…
Arguments are reviewed and extended in favor of presenting special relativity at least in part from a more mechanistic point of view. A number of generic mechanisms are catalogued and illustrated with the goal of making relativistic effects…