Philosophy of Science 61 (2):267-275 (1994)
Abstract |
To date, both sides in the conventionality of simultaneity debate grant that transformations from "standard" to "nonstandard" coordinates are possible without any empirically significant effects. However, it is argued here that the very possibility of defining nonstandard coordinates vanishes if one represents special relativity, not by real four-vectors (as has been the case so far in the debate), but by complex spinors as used in the representation of half-integer spin. Thus, in the topologically simplest representation of the Lorentz group, the transformation over which the debate has been fought does not exist and one of the most basic foundations of the conventionalist thesis is challenged
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DOI | 10.1086/289799 |
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Citations of this work BETA
The Nontriviality of Trivial General Covariance: How Electrons Restrict 'Time' Coordinates, Spinors (Almost) Fit Into Tensor Calculus, and of a Tetrad is Surplus Structure.J. Brian Pitts - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 43 (1):1-24.
The Conventionality of Simultaneity in the Light of the Spinor Representation of the Lorentz Group.Vassilios Karakostas - 1997 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 28 (2):249-276.
The Nontriviality of Trivial General Covariance: How Electrons Restrict ‘Time’ Coordinates, Spinors Fit Into Tensor Calculus, and of a Tetrad is Surplus Structure.J. Brian Pitts - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 43 (1):1-24.
The Coordinate-Independent 2-Component Spinor Formalism and the Conventionality of Simultaneity.Jonathan Bain - 2000 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 31 (2):201-226.
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