To prove the vanishing component theorem for a Lorentz four-vector, first suppose in every inertial frame. An infinitesimal boost along spatial direction gives . It too vanishes for every , so each . If instead a specified spatial component vanishes in every frame, spatial rotations first imply that all three spatial components vanish in a chosen frame, and a boost in the specified direction then forces . Therefore
A physical consequence is that conservation of energy in every inertial frame implies full four-momentum conservation: apply the result to the difference between outgoing and incoming total four-momenta.
The statement fails for general tensors. A nonzero antisymmetric rank-two tensor has in every frame, because antisymmetry is preserved. For an off-diagonal component, the nonzero Minkowski metric is another counterexample: in all orthonormal Lorentz frames, while is certainly not zero. The transformation law can preserve structural zero components without forcing the entire tensor to vanish.