Electrodynamics as a particular case of the most general relativistic force field

摘要

A new approach to classical electrodynamics is presented, showing that it can be regarded as a particular case of the most general relativistic force field. In particular, at first it is shown that the structure of the Lorentz force comes directly from the structure of the three-force transformation law, and that E and B fields can be defined, which in general will depend not only on the space-time coordinate, but also on the velocity of the body acted upon. Then it is proved that these fields become independent of the body velocity if the force field propagates throughout space at the relativistic speed limit c. Finally, field sources are introduced by defining them as perturbations of the field itself, obtaining a generalization of Maxwell equations which allow to express the field in terms sources, if these last are known a priori. Electrodynamics follows simply assuming, in addition to the postulate of field propagation at the speed c, that scalar sources of the B field are missing and that electric charge is an invariant characteristic of matter, acting both as source of the field and sensing property. The presented approach may have valuable didactic effectiveness in showing that space-time structure, as defined by special relativity postulates, is the ultimate responsible of the structure of electrodynamics laws.