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
Criticism of the theory of relativity called it the "invariant theory of the Lorentz group" instead of relativity theory, and Einstein (who reportedly used expressions like "absolute theory") sympathized with this expression as well. Critical responses to relativity were also expressed by proponents of Neo-Kantianism (Paul Natorp, Bruno Bauch, etc.), and Phenomenology (Oskar Becker, Moritz Geiger etc.). While some of them only rejected the philosophical consequences, others rejected also the physical consequences of the theory. Einstein was criticized for violating Immanuel Kant's categoric scheme, "i.e.", it was claimed that space-time curvature caused by matter and energy is impossible, since matter and energy already require the concepts