De Sitter Relativity
Equivalent to the original ? No.
According to and the references therein, if you take Minkowski's ideas to their logical conclusion then not only are boosts non-commutative but translations are also non-commutative. This means that the symmetry group of space time is a de Sitter group rather than the Poincare group. This results in spacetime being slightly curved even in the absence of matter or energy. This residual curvature is caused by a cosmological constant to be determined by observation. Due to the small magnitude of the constant, then special relativity with the Poincaré group is more than accurate enough for all practical purposes, although near the big bang and inflation de Sitter relativity may be more useful due to the cosmological constant being larger back then. Note this is not the same thing as solving Einstein's field equations for general relativity to get a de Sitter Universe, rather de Sitter relativity is about getting a de Sitter Group for special relativity which neglects gravity.
Read more about this topic: Special Relativity (alternative Formulations)
Famous quotes containing the word relativity:
“By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, to-day in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be regarded as a bête noire the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!”
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955)