Orthogonality and spacetime geometry (Q1090929)

The book offers a very efficient exposition (clear, profound and not too long) of the affine and projective geometries, based on the notion of orthogonality. The rigour of the theory is harmoniously completed by numerous examples and applications, most of them concerning the Minkowskian space-time. Using some fundamental concepts of the special relativity, in the first chapter of the book is clarified the sense in which we should understand the orthogonality in a Minkowskian space-time. It is pointed out that in such spaces it expresses a concrete physical fact, namely the simultaneity relative to an inertial observer. This is only one case, but equal attention is paid to all the possibilities: Euclidean, Minkowskian, Robb planes, as well as to three and four dimensional spaces. Although the exposure is axiomatic, i.e. a coordinate-free one, the problem of coordinatization is analysed in details in both cases of the affine and projective spaces. The metric structure is presented in terms of inner products, which play an important role when the vector spaces are defined over the fields \({\mathbb{R}}\) or \({\mathbb{C}}\) [comparison with \textit{J. Bognár}, Indefinite inner product spaces (1974; Zbl 0286.46028) is very useful]. Even in earlier stages of the space-time theories [see \textit{A. A. Robb}, A theory of time and space, 1st ed. (1914), 2nd ed.: Geometry of time and space (1936; Zbl 0013.23303)] it was shown that the geometry of this space may be derived from the single relation ''after''. The disadvantage of such a construction is the great number of the axioms which should be adopted. Using the primitive notions ''between'' and ''orthogonal'', the present book proves how simply we may obtain the geometries of different spaces. The most important application concerns an easy proof of the Alexandrov- Zeeman theorem, which is contained in the second appendix of the book. It is significant to mention that the famous Zeeman's assertion ''Causality implies the Lorentz group'' was generalized to arbitrary Hilbert (resp. Krein) real spaces via functional analysis arguments [see \textit{W. F. Pfeffer}, Am. J. Math. 103, 691-709 (1981; Zbl 0471.46014)].