物理数学

An Implicit and Untested Premise of the Special Theory of Relativity

Abstract

Asokan S.P.

The derivation of Lorentz Transformation Equations in the Special Theory of Relativity, besides being explicitly based on the two postulates of that theory is also critically based on an implicit premise that the detection of a light signal/particle at a point in space at an instant of time is an event that is not exclusive to any inertial reference frame but it is capable of being measured by the observers in other inertial reference frames as well. This paper explains how this untested paradoxical premise vitiates the entire theory and suggests its replacement with a contrary postulate that the detection of light in an inertial reference frame is an event that is exclusive to that frame. This paper shows that if that contrary postulate is accepted, then the absoluteness of space and time declared by Newton can coexist with the absoluteness of the speed of light in vacuum declared by Einstein without any conflict between them.