Did Malament prove the non-conventionality of simultaneity in the special theory of relativity?
Philosophy of Science 66 (2):208-220 (1999)
| Abstract | David Malament's (1977) well-known result, which is often taken to show the uniqueness of the Poincare-Einstein convention for defining simultaneity, involves an unwarranted physical assumption: that any simultaneity relation must remain invariant under temporal reflections. Once that assumption is removed, his other criteria for defining simultaneity are also satisfied by membership in the same backward (forward) null cone of the family of such cones with vertices on an inertial path. What is then unique about the Poincare-Einstein convention is that it is independent of the choice of inertial path in a given inertial frame, confirming a remark in Einstein 1905. Similarly, what is unique about the backward (forward) null cone definition is that it is independent of the state of motion of an observer at a point on the inertial path | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesAllen Janis, Conventionality of Simultaneity. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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Bas C. Van Fraassen (1969). Conventionality in the Axiomatic Foundations of the Special Theory of Relativity. Philosophy of Science 36 (1):64 - 73.
Frank Jackson & Robert Pargetter (1977). Relative Simultaneity in the Special Relativity. Philosophy of Science 44 (3):464-474.
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