Alternative Derivation of 3D Lorentz Transformations: Constancy of the Speed of Light from First Principles

Abstract

The description of relativistic phenomena is fundamentally associated with the pioneering formulations of Hendrik Antoon Lorentz and Albert Einstein. Although extensively tested and accepted, these formulations — in our interpretation — still face several conceptual and practical challenges for a complete understanding and application to relativistic phenomena. Recently, we introduced an approach, named Generalized Relativistic Transformation (GRT) [1,2], aimed to describing relativistic events through a projection of the Relativistic Velocity Space onto the Proper Velocity Space. Consequently, it was possible to obtain new classes of relativistic transformations, reinterpret the Einstein and Lorentz transformations, and derive the constancy of the speed of light from the first principles instead of as a postulate.