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 the general covariance of his 1915 theory of gravity ensured implementation of a generalized relativity principle. This view was challenged by Erich Kretschmann (1917), who argued that every theory of space and time (even including Newtonian dynamics) can be formulated in a covariant way, if additional parameters are included, and thus general covariance of a theory would in itself be insufficient to implement a generalized relativity principle. Although Einstein (1918) agreed with that argument, he also countered that Newtonian mechanics in general covariant form would be too complicated for practical uses. Although it is now understood that Einstein's response to