History of special relativity History of special relativity The history of special relativity consists of many theoretical results and empirical findings obtained by Albert A. Michelson, Hendrik Lorentz, Henri Poincaré and others. It culminated in the theory of special relativity proposed by Albert Einstein and subsequent work of Max Planck, Hermann Minkowski and others. Although Isaac Newton based his physics on absolute time and space, he also adhered to the principle of relativity of Galileo Galilei restating it precisely for mechanical systems . This can be stated as: as far as the laws of mechanics are concerned, all observers in inertial motion are equally
Postulates of special relativity Postulates of special relativity 1. First postulate (principle of relativity) 2. Second postulate (invariance of "c") The two-postulate basis for special relativity is the one historically used by Einstein, and it remains the starting point today. As Einstein himself later acknowledged, the derivation of the Lorentz transformation tacitly makes use of some additional assumptions, including spatial homogeneity, isotropy, and memorylessness. Also Hermann Minkowski implicitly used both postulates when he introduced the Minkowski space formulation, even though he showed that "c" can be seen as a space-time constant, and the identification with the speed of light is derived from optics. Historically,