Chapter 3 – The Lorentz Transformation（第三章洛伦兹变换）.pdf

Chapter 3 – The Lorentz Transformation 3– 1. Galilean Relativity and Reference Frames When we formulate the laws of physics, we either implicitly or explicitly define an observer who makes the measurement. Often times, we would like to know what a different observer measures. For example, when we do collision problems, we often ask how an observer in the “center of mass” or more precisely “zero momentum” system views the collision, because the mathematics is much easier in this system. Since the time of Newton, physicists have accepted the assertion that the laws of physics should have the same mathematical form to any observer who is not experiencing an acceleration . This concept of “Galilean Relativity” was accepted by Albert Einstein as his “First Postulate of Relativity.” In classical physics, the positions and times of an event as measured by two observers are related by “non-relativistic boosts” as described in Section 1.3.C. When we apply a non- relativistic boost to transform coordinates from one observer to another, we say we do a “Galilean Transformation” of the coordinates. A similar relativistic transformation is called a “Lorentz Transformation,” named after the great Dutch physicist, H. A. Lorentz. Lorentz proposed these transformations, which are central to relativistic theory, a year before Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity. Before we find the Lorentz boost matrix, however, we should be careful to define a few very useful terms. • event: an occurrence which has definite coordinates in both space and time. It is often useful to think of an event as a little explosion . • ref erencef rame: a set of measuring rods and clocks. The rods are arranged along Cartesian axes from an origin . Clocks are located at every point in space. The clocks are synchronized so that they all read the same time. This means that any two observers equidist