- #1
yuedongxiao
- 10
- 0
I was trying to write some "popular science" story on special relativity and explain it to kids a couple of days ago, but find the postulate of speed of light is too hard to be accepted as a fact. So I started working from the Galilean transformation, and realized that Lorentz transformation is just a simple extension of it.
The full derivation is at
http://netbula.com/ydx-SR-lorentz-transformation.pdf
Put it simply, let's assume the general form of the transformation of event (x_A, t_A)
from reference A to B (where B moves at v relative to A) is
x_B = r * (x_A – v * t_A )
switching the references around, A moves at -v relative to B, we must have
x_A = r * (x_B + v * t_B )
From these two equations, we get
t_B = r * t_A + x_A * (1 – r*r) /(r*v)
Now, if we want space and time be treated symmetrically by our nature, we have
- r * v = (1-r*r)/ (r*v)
And we find
r = 1 /sqrt (1- v * v)
For analysis, see http://netbula.com/ydx-SR-lorentz-transformation.pdf
The full derivation is at
http://netbula.com/ydx-SR-lorentz-transformation.pdf
Put it simply, let's assume the general form of the transformation of event (x_A, t_A)
from reference A to B (where B moves at v relative to A) is
x_B = r * (x_A – v * t_A )
switching the references around, A moves at -v relative to B, we must have
x_A = r * (x_B + v * t_B )
From these two equations, we get
t_B = r * t_A + x_A * (1 – r*r) /(r*v)
Now, if we want space and time be treated symmetrically by our nature, we have
- r * v = (1-r*r)/ (r*v)
And we find
r = 1 /sqrt (1- v * v)
For analysis, see http://netbula.com/ydx-SR-lorentz-transformation.pdf