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Criticism of the theory of relativity superseded by Einstein's special relativity which was subsequently formulated in the framework of four-dimensional spacetime by Minkowski. Others such as Herbert E. Ives argued that it might be possible to experimentally determine the motion of such an aether, but it was never found despite numerous experimental tests of Lorentz invariance (see tests of special relativity). Also attempts to introduce some sort of relativistic aether (consistent with relativity) into modern physics such as by Einstein on the basis of general relativity (1920), or by Paul Dirac in relation to quantum mechanics (1951), were not supported by the scientific community (see Luminiferous