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In physics, the Lorentz transformation (or transformations) are coordinate transformations between two coordinate frames that move at constant velocity relative to each other. Frames of reference can be divided into two groups, inertial (relative motion with constant velocity) and non-inertial (accelerating in curved paths, rotational motion with constant angular velocity, etc.). The term "Lorentz transformations" only refers to transformations between ''inertial'' frames, usually in the context of special relativity. In each reference frame, an observer can use a local coordinate system (most exclusively Cartesian coordinates in this context) to measure lengths, and a clock to measure time intervals. An observer is a real or imaginary entity that can take measurements, say humans, or any other living organism—or even robots and computers. An event is something that happens at a point in space at an instant of time, or more formally a point in spacetime. The transformations connect the space and time coordinates of an event as measured by an observer in each frame.〔One can imagine that in each inertial frame there are observers positioned throughout space, each endowed with a synchronized clock and at rest in the particular inertial frame. These observers then report to a central office, where a report is collected. When one speaks of a ''particular'' observer, one refers to someone having, at least in principle, a copy of this report. See, e.g., .〕 They supersede the Galilean transformation of Newtonian physics, which assumes an absolute space and time (see Galilean relativity). The Galilean transformation is a good approximation only at relative speeds much smaller than the speed of light. Lorentz transformations have a number of unintuitive features that do not appear in Galilean transformations. For example, they reflect the fact that observers moving at different velocities may measure different distances, elapsed times, and even different orderings of events, but always such that the speed of light is the same in all inertial reference frames. The invariance of light speed is one of the postulates of special relativity. Historically, the transformations were the result of attempts by Lorentz and others to explain how the speed of light was observed to be independent of the reference frame, and to understand the symmetries of the laws of electromagnetism. The Lorentz transformation is in accordance with special relativity, but was derived before special relativity. The transformations are named after the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz. The Lorentz transformation is a linear transformation. It may include a rotation of space; a rotation-free Lorentz transformation is called a Lorentz boost. In Minkowski space, the mathematical model of spacetime in special relativity, the Lorentz transformations preserve the spacetime interval between any two events. This property is the defining property of a Lorentz transformation. They describe only the transformations in which the spacetime event at the origin is left fixed. They can be considered as a hyperbolic rotation of Minkowski space. The more general set of transformations that also includes translations is known as the Poincaré group. ==History== (詳細はWoldemar Voigt, George FitzGerald, Joseph Larmor, and Hendrik Lorentz himself—had been discussing the physics implied by these equations since 1887. Early in 1889, Oliver Heaviside had shown from Maxwell's equations that the electric field surrounding a spherical distribution of charge should cease to have spherical symmetry once the charge is in motion relative to the ether. FitzGerald then conjectured that Heaviside’s distortion result might be applied to a theory of intermolecular forces. Some months later, FitzGerald published the conjecture that bodies in motion are being contracted, in order to explain the baffling outcome of the 1887 ether-wind experiment of Michelson and Morley. In 1892, Lorentz independently presented the same idea in a more detailed manner, which was subsequently called FitzGerald–Lorentz contraction hypothesis. Their explanation was widely known before 1905. Lorentz (1892–1904) and Larmor (1897–1900), who believed the luminiferous ether hypothesis, also looked for the transformation under which Maxwell's equations are invariant when transformed from the ether to a moving frame. They extended the FitzGerald–Lorentz contraction hypothesis and found out that the time coordinate has to be modified as well ("local time"). Henri Poincaré gave a physical interpretation to local time (to first order in v/c) as the consequence of clock synchronization, under the assumption that the speed of light is constant in moving frames. Larmor is credited to have been the first to understand the crucial time dilation property inherent in his equations.〔 〕 In 1905, Poincaré was the first to recognize that the transformation has the properties of a mathematical group, and named it after Lorentz.〔The reference is within the following paper:〕 Later in the same year Albert Einstein published what is now called special relativity, by deriving the Lorentz transformation under the assumptions of the principle of relativity and the constancy of the speed of light in any inertial reference frame, and by abandoning the mechanical aether. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lorentz transformation」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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