No subject

transformation and velocity addition law using only algebra and
basic physical considerations.

What if Galileo, back in the 17^th century, had derived the
principles of Einstein's relativity? Would the history of science
progress been different? Gannett doesn't think so.

"If Galileo had derived it, Occam's razor [`the law of simplicity']
would have impelled him to discard Einsteinian relativity as a
needlessly complex mathematical curiosity that was not required to
resolve any outstanding issues known to 17^th century science," he
predicts.

In Einstein's time, things were different. Newton's classical
mechanics clashed with Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism,
which date from 1861. With the ideas in special relativity, which
showed that electrodynamics obeyed relativity, Einstein replaced
the old spacetime model from Newtonian mechanics and solved a major
challenge of the early 20^th century.

Citation: Gannett, Joel W. "Nothing but relativity, redux."
European Journal of Physics, 28 (2007) 1145-1150.

FROM THE FRAY:

Posted by LearmSceince 10/08/07 15:39
Rank: 4.75/5 after 4 votes
Why don't they link to the actual paper? I found it here.
The original is something I often point out on this message board,
and it doesn't require calculus but does take a limit, which could
be done "the long way" without knowing calculus as a subject.

Posted by Ragtime 10/08/07 18:19
Rank: 3/5 after 2 votes
In general, the relativity is the trivial consequence of usage of
the single interaction both for space, both for time measurements
during observation. Simply because of lack of reference
interaction.
For example, if we'll use the surface water waves for observation
of water surface phenomena, we'll get the relativistic transforms,
while we will use the these waves for estimation of time and space
intervals, too.
The apparent incompatibility of relativistic phenomena with
Newtonian mechanics is just a consequence of the fact, we are
observing the surface water wave by using of light wave as a
reference (i.e. much faster) wave.
But in vacuum we HAVE NO such reference wave for observation of
surface waves. This is whole difference - with regard to the above
approach we can make a relativistic observations even at the water
surface.
By another words, the relativity is the matter of the most
fundamental observational perspective, i.e. the perspective,
involving the single universal interaction used during information
mediation.

Posted by fredrick 10/08/07 23:52
Rank: 1.5/5 after 2 votes
Thanks LearmSceince, I wouldn't have bothered looking for that
myself.

Posted by satran 10/09/07 09:51
Rank: 1/5 after 1 vote
Galileo's efforts to measure sum of internal angles of large
triangles indicate to me that his thoughts included NON-GALILEAN
relativity as a possibility. I wonder if it would be possible to
repeat this experiment with state-of-the art equipment and
demonstrate a non-flat space-time.