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 I, there appeared some nationalistically motivated criticisms of relativity and modern physics. For example, Pierre Duhem regarded relativity as the product of the "too formal and abstract" German spirit, which was in conflict with the "common sense". Similarly, popular criticism in the Soviet Union and China, which partly was politically organized, rejected the theory not because of factual objections, but as ideologically motivated as the product of western decadence. So in those countries, the Germans or the Western civilization were the enemies. However, in Germany the Jewish ancestry of some leading relativity proponents such as Einstein and Minkowski made them