MG12 - Talk detail
 

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Abstract

Poincaré and relativity theory: the logic of the 1905 Palermo memoir

We highlight two major points which have been ignored or underestimated before, concerning "La dynamique de l'électron". The first one is the use by Poincaré of active Lorentz transformations (or boosts) in order to correctly define what Lorentz called a global translation of a physical system. The second one is the key role given to the invariance of the action (electromagnetic or not) and the group condition l=1 (required by Mechanics) to deduce before Planck the relativistic Lagrangian and the equation of dynamics in all generality. We discuss the exact role played by electromagnetism and models (Poincaré's pressure) in the Memoir and the true weakness of it, which is not to have included the confinement energy in the mass of the electron.

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