Lorentz transformations and wave-particle unity

Ryszard Horodecki

Daniel Shanahan

The Lorentz transformation (the LT) is explained by changes occurring in the wave characteristics of matter as it changes inertial frame. This explanation is akin to that favoured by Lorentz, but informed by later insights, due primarily to de Broglie, regarding the underlying unity of matter and radiation. To show the nature of these changes, a massive particle is modelled as a standing wave in three dimensions. As the particle moves, the standing wave becomes a travelling wave having two factors. One is a carrier wave displaying the dilated frequency and contracted ellipsoidal form described by the LT, while the other (identified as the de Broglie wave) is a modulation defining the dephasing of the carrier wave (and thus the failure of simultaneity) in the direction of travel. The superluminality of the de Broglie wave is thus explained, as are several other mysterious features of the optical behaviour of matter, including the physical meaning of the Schrödinger Eqn. and the relevance to scattering processes of the de Broglie wave number. Consideration is given to what this Lorentzian approach to relativity might mean for the possible existence of a preferred frame and the origin of the observed Minkowski metric.

Leo Sartori

Daniel Shanahan

The Lorentz transformation (LT) is explained by changes occurring in the wave characteristics of matter as it changes inertial frame. This explanation is akin to that favoured by Lorentz, but informed by later insights, due primarily to de Broglie, regarding the underlying unity of matter and radiation. To show the nature of these changes, a massive particle is modelled as a standing wave in three dimensions. As the particle moves, the standing wave becomes a travelling wave having two factors. One is a carrier wave displaying the dilated frequency and contracted ellipsoidal form described by the LT, while the other (identified as the de Broglie wave) is a modulation defining the dephasing of the carrier wave (and thus the failure of simultaneity) in the direction of travel. The superluminality of the de Broglie wave is thus explained, as are several other mysterious features of the optical behaviour of matter, including the physical meaning of the Schrödinger equation and the relevance to scattering processes of the de Broglie wave vector. Consideration is given to what this Lorentzian approach to relativity might mean for the possible existence of a preferred frame and the origin of the observed Minkowski metric.

Georges Lochak, Regis Dutheil

Dmitri L. Khokhlov, R. Korsakov St

The quantum mechanical model of electromagnetic waves is considered, in which the photon, as a particle, propagates with the speed of light, while the wave function of the photon spreads out with an infinite speed. The Lorentz transformation for the energy flux of electromagnetic wave is obtained while assuming the Galilei transformation for the space and time. The energy of the electromagnetic wave also follows the Lorentz transformation with the volume restricting the wave train not following any transformation.