Einstein's special relativity from a space-time duality principle

Abstract

Einstein based his special theory of relativity on two postulates: (a) physical laws appear the same in all inertial frames, and (b) the speed of light in vacuum is an observer-independent constant. However, it is already known that the principle of the constancy of the speed of light is redundant in the construction of the special theory of relativity. Adhering to this idea, we show here that the form of the Lagrangian for a free relativistic particle can be derived if we consider a class of theories that remain invariant under a duality transformation between space and time intervals. Therefore, the special theory of relativity is interpreted as a theory that exhibits a duality symmetry with space intervals and time intervals being dual to each other. The Lorentz transformations then are simply deduced as the linear transformation between inertial observers that leaves the (infinitesimal) action of the relativistic particles unchanged.