Read · Special relativity: from clock operations to electrodynamics · Results
Follow the introduction and all ten sections, including field transformations, finite light complexes, moving mirrors, charge-current transformations, and the electron-force conventions.
Newly authored explanatory preview in modern notation, with editorial and physics review pending. Both the kinematic and electrodynamic halves are treated, but this is not a German transcription, an aligned translation, or a complete critical edition. The source paragraphs, footnotes, acknowledgment, and date-lines are not claimed to be fully represented or reviewed here. Headings and argument units are editorial.
A moving conductor in a magnetic field and a moving magnet near a conductor invite different classical explanations. Relativity asks for consistent predictions of the same physical arrangement, not identical numerical field components.
Exchange a light signal, assign the distant reflection the midpoint of the departure and return times, and state the equal-travel-time convention. The event time is not the time its image reaches an observer.
A moving rod’s length uses endpoint positions measured at the same time in the measuring frame. Transforming a pair simultaneous in another frame usually does not produce that measurement.
Linearity and the two light directions constrain space and time to mix. Reciprocity and spatial symmetry then fix a remaining scale, with the positive choice connected to the identity.
The longitudinal light constraints do not alone determine transverse scale. Enforcing the isotropic light-speed condition on transverse propagation, together with the inverse and positive identity limit, completes the map.
For an inertially moving clock, its own elapsed time is smaller than the coordinate interval between its ticks. A moving rod’s simultaneous coordinate length is smaller than its rest length; neither result is a photographic distortion.
Reunited clocks compare elapsed times along different paths between shared meetings. Flat-spacetime path accounting does not predict a real equator-versus-pole clock comparison by itself.
Velocity is a ratio of a spatial difference to a time difference. Transform both differences before dividing, and light speed stays c while collinear subluminal speeds compose below c.
The chain rule mixes time and longitudinal derivatives. Grouping the resulting terms suggests transformed electric and magnetic components; covariance alone is not a uniqueness proof of their physical identification.
For a boost along x, longitudinal field components stay unchanged and transverse electric and magnetic components mix. Transforming the force consistently does not require equal raw force values in both frames.
Transforming a plane wave’s phase yields both the frequency ratio and aberration. At 0.6c a collinear ray has frequency ratio one half; a ray transverse in the original frame instead has ratio 1.25.
Radiation energy density changes by q², but the volume of the same moving light complex on a simultaneous slice changes by 1/q. Its total energy therefore changes by q, just like frequency.
Transform into the mirror’s rest frame, reflect there, and transform back. First check that the light catches the surface: its normal speed must exceed the mirror’s receding speed.
Charge density and longitudinal current mix under a frame change. Zero charge density with nonzero current is allowed; it cannot be handled by dividing current by charge density to invent one charge velocity.
The printed transverse coefficient compares comoving force with laboratory acceleration and equals mγ². Using laboratory force with laboratory acceleration instead gives mγ. These are different definitions, not two conflicting values of invariant mass.
Integrating the longitudinal force gives kinetic energy mc²(γ − 1), not the total rest energy. Accelerating voltage and curvature provide separate experimental relations under specified fields.