Would Leibniz have been able to discover relativity

The purpose of the paper is to reduce the theory of mechanics to a minimum set of principles. Assuming the existence of conservation laws, it is shown that the form of these laws is completely determined by the fundamental symmetries of the galilean reference frame, without using pre-established kinematics: the expressions of these laws correspond to Einsteinian mechanics, including those of Leibnizian or Newtonian mechanics as a limiting case. In this way, the existence of an upper limit of the velocity of energy propagation and the mass-energy equivalence are deduced from the fundamental symmetries. (author)