Time-Symmetric Action-at-a-Distance Electrodynamics and the Principle of Action and Reaction for Particles at Relative Rest

Abstract

We investigate a theory of time-symmetric action-at-a-distance electrodynamic or gravitational interactions where the four-forces depend only on the electric charges, the rest masses, the position four-vectors, and the four-velocities of the two interacting particles, but not on their four-accelerations or higher derivatives. The goal is to prove that the principle of action and reaction is obeyed due to the fact that, for a given pair of corresponding infinitesimal segments along the worldlines of the two particles, the impulse of the advanced four-force and the impulse of the retarded four-force are equal in magnitude but opposite in direction. For two particles at relative rest, we derive this result as the outcome of a symmetry operation in flat conformal space. We start by assuming a positive spacetime interval between the two interacting particles, and we perform a conformal inversion (an improper inversion in a hypersphere), after which the two particles exchange their position and time coordinates and their rest masses. Then we perform an improper reflection across the axis connecting the two particles, after which the two particles recover their initial four-velocities, up to a minus sign. Two improper coordinate transformations are needed together in order to obtain a resulting positive Jacobian determinant. In the final step we go to the limit of a null spacetime interval between the endpoints of the corresponding infinitesimal segments. When the two interacting particles are at rest, or move with the same velocity, the initial and the final physical parameters that determine the four-forces are identical. Due to symmetry, the principle of action and reaction emerges. We make the conjecture that another, undetermined yet, symmetry operation must also apply, in order for the principle of action and reaction to hold even for particles moving with different velocities.