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In relativistic physics, Lorentz symmetry or Lorentz invariance, named after the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz, is an equivalence of observation or observational symmetry due to special relativity implying that the laws of physics stay the same for all observers that are moving with respect to one another within an inertial frame. It has also ...
This is the formula for time dilation: ... The Lorentz transformations also ... ds 2 is known as the spacetime interval. This inner product is invariant under the ...
This form is invariant under the Lorentz group, so that for S ∈ SL(2, C) one has , = , This defines a kind of "scalar product" of spinors, and is commonly used to defined a Lorentz-invariant mass term in Lagrangians. There are several notable properties to be called out that are important to physics.
The difference between this and the spacetime interval = in Minkowski space is that = is invariant purely by the principle of relativity whereas = requires both postulates. The "principle of relativity" in spacetime is taken to mean invariance of laws under 4-dimensional transformations.
For the Lorentz transformation to have the physical significance realized by nature, it is crucial that the interval is an invariant measure for any two events, not just for those separated by light signals. To establish this, one considers an infinitesimal interval, [4]
The covariant formulation of classical electromagnetism refers to ways of writing the laws of classical electromagnetism (in particular, Maxwell's equations and the Lorentz force) in a form that is manifestly invariant under Lorentz transformations, in the formalism of special relativity using rectilinear inertial coordinate systems.
A simple Lorentz scalar in Minkowski spacetime is the spacetime distance ("length" of their difference) of two fixed events in spacetime. While the "position"-4-vectors of the events change between different inertial frames, their spacetime distance remains invariant under the corresponding Lorentz transformation.
The distance is purely spatial, and is always positive. In spacetime, the separation between two events is measured by the invariant interval between the two events, which takes into account not only the spatial separation between the events, but also their separation in time. The interval, s 2, between two events is defined as: