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Special Relativity without One-Way Velocity Assumptions: Part I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

John A. Winnie
John A. Winnie*
Affiliation:
University of Hawaii
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Abstract

The Reichenbach-Grünbaum thesis of the conventionality of simultaneity is clarified and defended by developing the consequences of the Special Theory when assumptions are not made concerning the one-way speed of light. It is first shown that the conventionality of simultaneity leads immediately to the conventionality of all relative speeds. From this result, the general-length-contraction and time-dilation relations are then derived. Next, the place of time-dilation and length-contraction effects within the Special Theory is examined in the light of the conventionality thesis. The slow-transport method of synchrony is then examined in the light of these results and is shown not to provide an adequate method of uniquely determining the one-way speed of light. Finally, the general ∊-Lorentz transformations for events along the x-axis are derived from three principles: the round-trip light principle, the principle of equal passage times, and the linearity principle. These principles are shown to be independent of one-way velocity assumptions, and thus may form the basis of a Special Theory of Relativity without distant simultaneity assumptions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , March 1970 , pp. 81 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Part II, the concluding part, will appear in the immediately succeeding issue (Vol. 37, No. 2) of this journal.

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