Abstract

Classical mechanics is a limiting case of relativistic mechanics. Hence the group of the former, the Galilei group, must be in some sense a limiting case of the relativistic mechanics’ group, the representations of the former must be limiting cases of the latter’s representations. There are other examples for similar relations between groups. Thus, the inhomogeneous Lorentz group must be, in the same sense, a limiting case of the de Sitter groups. The purpose of the present note is to investigate, in some generality, in which sense groups can be limiting cases of other groups (Section I), and how their representations can be obtained from the representations of the groups of which they appear as limits (Section II). Section III deals briefly with the transition from inhomogeneous Lorentz group to Galilei group. It shows in which way the representation up to a factor of the Galilei group, embodied in the Schrodinger equation, appears as a limit of a representation of the inhomogeneous Lorentz group and also gives the reason why no physical interpretation is possible for the real representations of that group.

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