Limiting velocity and generalized Lorentz trasformations

Abstract

After a short Historical bibliographical note, in the Starting points attention will be focused on some postulates common to classical mechanics and special relativity. Starting from these premises, in the sections The deduction of the form of possible transformations and The Ignatowsky constant it will be shown that the choice between the Galilean scheme and one of the generalized Lorentz type is in fact the only possible one. In a generalized Lorentz scheme, the interactions propagate at a finite velocity VL and the form of the transformations of the space-time coordinates of the events is analogous to those of Lorentz; the only difference is that the limiting speed VL plays the role assumed by the invariance of c, the speed of light in a vacuum, in Lorentz transformations. The line of development of the arguments does not depend directly on electromagnetism, in other words we are dealing with a regulating principle for kinematics and for the set of laws of physics. The assumption VL=c can be assumed from the experimental datum of the invariance of c, i.e. from the validity of Maxwell's equations. Galileo transformations are obtained if and only if the time interval between two events is an invariant for inertial frames of reference, if this interval is not invariant then the transformations are of the generalized Lorentz type. In this framework, the experimental confirmations of the non-invariance of time intervals constitute an indirect confirmation of the generalized Lorentz transformations and therefore of the existence of a limiting velocity for the interactions. During the course of the discussion, a demonstration of the "Reciprocity Lemma" will also be presented, different and simpler than other approaches proposed in the literature [6,7,8].