On the invariance and intrinsicality of four-dimensional shapes in Special Relativity

• Autores: Yuri Balashov
• Localización: Analysis, ISSN-e 1467-8284, Vol. 74, Nº. 4, 2014, págs. 608-612
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Are shapes of objects intrinsic to them? The issue has been intensely debated. Special relativity (SR) adds a new dimension to it by relativizing three-dimensional (3D) shapes not just to times, but to times-in-frames. Arguably, however, such relativized spatial shapes are mere perspectival representations of an invariant, hence intrinsic, four-dimensional (4D) shape of an object in Minkowski spacetime. In a recent note, Matthew Davidson questions the intrinsicality of 4D shapes in SR. I show that his conclusion and the reasoning behind it are in error.