Special Relativity 2.0

Over one hundred years ago, a patent clerk from Switzerland changed physics forever. With two simple postulates—that the speed of light was invariant to all observers, and that the laws of physics remained the same in all reference frames regardless of relative motion—he shattered the idea that space and time were absolute. Where clocks and rulers adapted not only to relative motion but to each observer's perspective.

His theory, what we now call Special Relativity, was based on the assumption that space and time were the fundamental bedrocks of the universe. Inexorably linked together in spacetime, a background on which the universe played out.

But what if this assumption—that spacetime was the fundamental structure of the universe—was incorrect? A product of the times and the problem Einstein was addressing.

Traditional Special Relativity creates an inherent contradiction: it treats time and space as independent coordinates, yet these are precisely the quantities that must transform when moving between reference frames. Meanwhile, energy and momentum—the truly invariant relationships—are treated as dependent variables. This inversion of dependencies has required increasingly complex mathematical machinery to maintain consistency.

Special Relativity 2.0 (SR2) corrects this fundamental inversion. When energy becomes the independent variable, a remarkable simplification occurs: instead of multiple coordinate systems requiring complex transformations, we discover a single unified spacetime that naturally adapts to energy differences between frames. Time and space scale algebraically rather than transform differentially, eliminating mathematical complexity while revealing deeper physical insights.

This energy-first approach achieves everything Einstein's postulates require—invariant light speed and consistent physical laws—through direct energy-momentum relationships rather than coordinate manipulations. The mathematical elegance is striking: relativistic effects emerge as natural consequences of energy scaling, not as imposed geometric transformations.

The implications are profound. SR2 returns space and time to their proper role as dependent variables adapting to energy differences between frames, creating a more intuitive framework where the invariant relationship between energy and momentum inherently ensures covariance with energy differences across inertial frames. This approach resolves the unnecessary fragmentation of spacetime in traditional formulations while maintaining all experimentally verified predictions of Special Relativity. Moreover, by framing intervals as Hamiltonian eigenvalues, SR2 lays the groundwork for a seamless extension into quantum theory.

The details of Special relativity 2.0 can be found in Part I of E-Theory available as a preprint on ai.viXra.org: https://ai.vixra.org/pdf/2505.0179v1.pdf

Additionally, we provide an E-Theory Interactive Companion, an advanced AI agent available for students and senior researches interested in the finer details of SR2.