Does Special Relativity Theory Tell us Anything New about Space and Time?
L?szl? E. Szab?
Keywords: Lorentz theory, special relativity, space, time, Lorentz, FitzGerald, Poincare, Lorentz covariance, relativity principle, Lorentz's principle, operationalism, conventionalism
It will be shown that, in comparison with the pre-relativistic Galileo invariant conceptions, special relativity tells us nothing new about the geometry of space-time. It simply calls something else "space-time", and this something else has different properties. All statements of special relativity about those features of reality that correspond to the original meaning of the terms "space" and "time" are identical with the corresponding traditional pre-relativistic statements. It will be also argued that special relativity and Lorentz theory are completely identical in both senses, as theories about space-time and as theories about the behaviour of moving physical objects.
