Published December 2008 | Version v1
Journal article

From amplitude-limited vectors to Maxwell's equations

  • 1. Yehud (Israel)
  • 2. Unit of Electro Optics Engineering, Ben-Gurion Univ. of the Negev, Beer-Sheva (Israel)

Description

Physical experiments show c, the speed of light in vacuo to be a universal constant. Relativistic arguments show it to be also an upper bound on physically measurable velocity. Vector addition of velocities, large or incrementally small, is no longer acceptable as the law of composition of measured velocities. Amplitude-limitation is imposed by using velocity vectors as the defining parameters of sophisticated operators such as four-vectors of unit norm and boost matrices whose interactions never allow it to exceed c. In a previous paper the unit energy momentum matrix was added and for a given parameterizing velocity was shown to have the structure of the square of the corresponding boost matrix. As a matrix its Lorentz transformation needs pre- and post-multiplication by the appropriate boost. Using the same operator, but mapped into S L(2C), to cover electric and magnetic vectors, the pre- and post multipliers must now be mutually inverse since mere transformation cannot generate an electromagnetic field. The resulting formulae generate Maxwell's equations.

Additional details

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Nuovo Cimento della Societa Italiana di Fisica. B, General Physics, Relativity, Astronomy and Mathematical Physics and Methods
Journal Volume
123
Journal Issue
12
Journal Page Range
p. 1661-1670
ISSN
1594-9982