Artículos de revistas
LIGHT-SPEED CONSTANCY VERSUS LIGHT-SPEED INVARIANCE IN THE DERIVATION OF RELATIVISTIC KINEMATICS
Registro en:
British Journal For The Philosophy Of Science. Oxford Univ Press United Kingdom, v. 44, n. 3, n. 381, n. 407, 1993.
0007-0882
WOS:A1993MM47700001
10.1093/bjps/44.3.381
Autor
BROWN, HR
MAIA, A
Institución
Resumen
It is still perhaps not widely appreciated that in 1905 Einstein used his postulate concerning the 'constancy' of the light-speed in the 'resting' frame, in conjunction with the principle of relativity, to derive numerical light-speed invariance. Now a 'weak' version of the relativity principle (or, alternatively, appeal to the Michelson-Morley experiment) leads from Einstein's light postulate to a condition that we call universal light-speed constancy, which is weaker than light-speed invariance. It follows from earlier independent investigations (Robertson [1949]; Steigler [1952]; Tzanakis and Kyritsis [1984]) that this condition is none the less sufficient to derive the Lorentz transformations up to a scale factor, given the well-known kinematic principle of 'reciprocity'. In this paper, we follow Robertson and explore the kinematics consistent with universal light-speed constancy without imposing reciprocity, and we recover the Lorentz transformations by further appeal only to the weak relativity principle and spatial isotropy. 44 3 381 407