New Results in Formulation of the Relativity Principle Essence

Abstract

The evidence for the physical nonequivalence of inertial reference frames moving relative to each other is given. The content of relativity principle is shown to be narrower than it is accepted nowadays. The principle of relativity is kept as the requirement of relativistic invariance of the laws of nature, the requirement, which results from the relativistic invariance of Maxwell equations for electromagnetic field. However, according to the results of the paper, the physical equivalence of inertial reference frames moving relative to each other does not follow from the relativistic invariance of equations of motion. This is due to the fact that the character of physical processes in inertial reference frames is not defined completely by equations of motion. To define phenomena and processes uniquely, the initial conditions should be used and formulated in terms of the time independence of spatial coordinates (global time). The transition of the global time of one inertial reference frame to the local times of the other frame, related to each other by Lorentz transformations, results in the physical nonequivalence of inertial reference frames. The above mentioned nonequivalence is a consequence of incompatibility of Lorentz transformations with dynamic principle: these transformations knock solutions of the dynamic equations out of the class of solutions with global time transferring them to solutions with local time. One manifestation of nonequivalence of inertial reference frames is the effect of physical processes relativity predicted by us in 1978. As the examples, illustrating basic conclusions of the paper, we consider elementary physical systems — the set of classical point particles, a free electron field and a quantum system in an external field causing quantum transitions. Under Lorentz transformations, the global time is shown to be split into some number of local times. Though, formally, the relativistic invariance of equations of motion is kept, the local time dependence on the velocity of relative motion of reference frames testifies that each inertial reference frame proves to be singled out among the others. The received results can serve as a strict substantiation of our previous conclusions concerning light barrier and superluminal communication, and open the way to the construction of the consecutive theory of physical processes occurring in inertial frames moving relative to an observer (for example, on stars).