Abstract

The concept of forcefree motion is primitive, i.e., unexplained, in special relativity. The paper demonstrates a way to characterize it by “more primitive,” directly operationally interpreted notions. These are the worldlines of (more or less) pointlike, but non-quantum bodies and of light signals, clock parametrizations of the former kind of worldlines and the direction, in which an observer sees a light signal go out. Already at this general level one can define the “radar distance” and the “radar (initial) velocity” of one body with respect to another, and can define in a reasonable manner that two bodies move in “opposite directions” with respect to an observer. These concepts are then used to formulate a certain criterion for path structures which can experimentally be tested without presupposing inertial frames, atomic clocks, etc. It is demonstrated that the path structure of free motion in gravity-free regions of space-time, i.e., in the domain of validity of special relativity, satisfies that criterion