Conventions and inertial reference frames

Abstract

This article discusses the role of conventions in defining the concept of inertial reference frame, and it specifies key historical evidence, up to now widely ignored, connecting Poincaré, Einstein, and Reichenbach’s analyses of simultaneity.

Noninertial Observers in Special Relativity and Clock Synchronization Debates

“…(11), (14) and (15) reduce to those for the required standard Lorentz transformation for |X 0 |/r 0 1 and |Y |/r 0 1 [23]. Thus, the theory of Fermi frames indicates that there is no discontinuity in SR between inertial and noninertial frames of reference and so this argument also fails to justify a need to reformulate SR.…”

“…A review of the considerable literature on the conventionality of simultaneity debate is given in Anderson et al [3], who conclude that clock synchronization is "irreducibly conventional" and claim that "one cannot single out [a particular synchronization choice] without an a priori assumption about the one-way speed of light" [3, p. 99]. Some more recent contributions are given in [2,[4][5][6][9][10][11].…”

“…Since it has fixed spatial coordinates in F of (X, Y ) = (0, 0), Eq. (11) gives that relative to L, T = t/γ . In other words, L observes this clock to always be running slow by the usual factor of γ .…”

A constructive formulation of the one-way speed of light

“…1 As a result of this experiment and the understanding of its implications, there has been much discussion about the oneway speed of light. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8] That the speed of light is a constant and the same constant in every direction in every inertial frame is a postulate of special relativity. According to this postulate, light rays, originating from a light source that is at rest in a particular inertial frame, propagate at the same speed in all inertial frames.…”

“…In the context of dynamics, Ohanian 2 has argued that the Einstein synchronization convention, which forces the one-way speed of light to be the same constant in all inertial frames, must be used to obtain the standard form for Newton's second law of motion. However, Martinez 4 and Macdonald 3 commented that dynamical considerations cannot be more fundamental than kinematical considerations in defining a synchronization convention. Ohanian 5 replied that a preferred synchronization is akin to a preferred coordinate system and "some choices of coordinates and of synchronization play a preferential role, because they permit us to express the laws of physics in their simplest form.…”