Special relativity in R: the lorentz package

Abstract

Introduction: In special relativity (Einstein, 1905), the Lorentz transformations (Lorentz, 1904) supersede their classical equivalent, the Galilean transformations. Lorentz transformations operate on four-vectors such as the four-velocity or four-potential and are usually operationalised as multiplication by a 4 × 4 matrix. A Lorentz transformation takes the components of an arbitrary four-vector as observed in one coordinate system and returns the components observed in another system which is moving at constant velocity with respect to the first. The materials have been made publicly available at: https://github.com/RobinHankin/lorentz and licensed under the GPL-3. To install the package, type install.packages("lorentz") library("lorentz") at the R command line.