Abstract
Scientists were forced to construct a relativistic theory of electromagnetism in order to have a systematic treatment of this subject in agreement with experience. More in particular, when the experimental transformation laws of electric and magnetic fields are taken into account Maxwell’s basic equations of electromagnetism are not invariant for Galilean transformations, but are invariant for Lorentz transformations. Moreover Michelson’s famous experiment of 1881 can be explained by assuming that light propagation in vacuum is isotropic. This excludes the possibility of determining one privileged inertial space or absolute space S(ab). 1)
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© 1978 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Bressan, A. (1978). Introduction. In: Relativistic Theories of Materials. Springer Tracts in Natural Philosophy, vol 29. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-81120-3_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-81120-3_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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