Engineering Physics Annotation << Back ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF SPECIAL RELATIVITY AND THE DERIVATION OF LORENTZ TRANSFORMATIONS M.A. MIKAELYAN Traditional construction of special relativity theory (SRT) is based on Einstein’s two postulates: 1) the principle of relativity (the equivalence of inertial reference systems); 2) the independence of the speed of light from the source velocity. Meanwhile, the logical consistency of SRT presupposes that the transformations of coordinates and time have a group property, which in conjunction with the first postulate is already leading to the Lorentz transformations. This was fi rst discovered by Ignatowsky [1] and Frank and Rothe [2]. In this paper an extremely simple and more informative derivation of the Lorentz transformations based on using only the first postulate is presented. As for the independence of the speed of light from the source velocity (second postulate), then it is too specifi c fact and (if you follow the Mach) the existence of such a fact should be derived, not postulated. The most optimal (and more informative) definitions of the inertial reference system and clock synchronization procedure are formulated. It is noted that Einstein’s statement about the general theory of relativity, according to which the theory can not be constructed on the basis of experience, and should be constructed deductively to the end, and only then you can resort to the experience, is valid for SRT too. Keywords: Lorentz transformations, Lorentz group, Einstein’s postulates, inertial reference system, clock synchronization. Contacts: E-mail: mikhail@bk.ru Pp. 03-10.