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The Relativistic Dynamics of a System of Particles Interacting at a Distance

L. H. Thomas

Open publisher page 77 citations

Abstract

The dynamics of a system of particles acting on one another at a distance can be relativistically invariant if the assumption of invariant world-lines is given up. This is shown by constructing a particular dynamics in which invariance over the homogeneous Lorentz group is trivial, but space as well as time displacement requires the solution of equations of motion or of a Schroedinger equation. This particular dynamics reduces in the nonrelativistic limit to the most general dynamics of a system of interacting particles admitting the Newtonian group.

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What this paper is about

The dynamics of a system of particles acting on one another at a distance can be relativistically invariant if the assumption of invariant world-lines is given up. This is shown by constructing a particular dynamics in which invariance over the homogeneous Lorentz group is trivial, but space as well as time displacement requires the solution of equations of motion or of a Schroedinger equation. This particular dynamics reduces in the nonrelativistic limit to the most general dynamics of a system of interacting particles admitting the Newtonian group.

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Available abstract

The dynamics of a system of particles acting on one another at a distance can be relativistically invariant if the assumption of invariant world-lines is given up. This is shown by constructing a particular dynamics in which invariance over the homogeneous Lorentz group is trivial, but space as well as time displacement requires the solution of equations of motion or of a Schroedinger equation. This particular dynamics reduces in the nonrelativistic limit to the most general dynamics of a system of interacting particles admitting the Newtonian group.

Key concepts: Physics, Invariant (physics), Dynamics (music), Classical mechanics, Relativistic dynamics, Newtonian dynamics, Lorentz covariance, Equations of motion

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