On 24-8-2009 20:21, Darren New wrote:
> Magnetism and electrostatics explained in terms of relativity, rather 
> than vice versa. And even I followed it when I skipped the actual math. :-)
> 
> http://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/mrr/MRRtalk.html
> 

It is 20 years ago but this is what I remember from one of the great 
teachers of theoretical physics in Amsterdam that I had the pleasure of 
attending the lectures of (Gerard Bauerle).

- let's assume we have a universe with 3 space-like coordinates and one 
time coordinate
- what happens of we have a vector in this space that has to be 
invariant to rotations?
- Surprise: what we have now on the blackboard are Maxwell's equations.

Ok, it took a number of hours to introduce the mathematics, but then we 
had in 10 minutes shown that in such a universe fields move at a fixed 
speed, aka lightspeed. General relativity was another 5 minutes work.

I'll read this page later. I have to do other things now :( but he 
starts with relativity assumed and works from there. Gerard started with 
a clean board.

Take home message for me (although I might not do his derivation 
justice): light is simply a property of space, not something that is 
added later.

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