Multiple Fiztgerald-Lorentz contractions

Abstract

In a recent paper, Harada and Sachs suggested that the Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction does not refer to a physical contraction but can perhaps best be seen as a 'currency conversion'. In the present paper, this view is inspected, and it is found, beyond the immediate frame of the interpretation, that the Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction leads to a contradiction in a system of more than two observers. A possible physical system in which this can occur is a relativistic (ideal) gas or fluid.