"Another thing I have learned since 1968 is that one should emphasize as early as possible that although objects moving at the speed of light famously behave in some very strange ways, the behavior of objects moving at speeds comparable to the speed of light can be just as peculiar. The peculiarity of motion at the speed of light is just a special case of a more general peculiarity of all motion, which becomes prominent only at extremely high speeds. That more general peculiarity can be expressed by an elementary but precise rule that it is possible and useful to formulate at a very early stage of the subject."
In physics, the special theory of relativity, or simply special relativity, is a scientific theory of the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's 1905 paper,
"It is regrettable that Voigts original ideas were unnoticed and, hence, did not play a role in the vigorous development of special relativity, somewhat similar to Poincares work in 1905. Lorentz, Poincare, Einstein and others did not refer to Voigts paper in their works. It appears that young Pauli was an early physicist to mention Voigts transformation in his book Theory of Relativity, published in 1921, but no further comment was made."
Special relativity"Einstein, following the steps of Ernst Mach... said... There is no ether wind. He did not say that there was no ether; only... [that the ether] is of no value in measuring uniform motion."
Special relativity"I. Redefine the foot. II. View nonrelativistic collisions from different frames. III. Immediately introduce relativistic velocity addition law. IV. Immediately introduce relativity of simultaneity. V. Give numerical illustrations. VI. Minkowski diagrams, direct from Einstein’s postulates. VII. Don’t bother with the spacetime Lorentz transformation."
Special relativity"Based on Faradays earlier work, Maxwell stressed the notion of fields, in contrast to Newtons emphasis on the direct action of bodies on each other across empty space (). Faraday and Maxwell regarded the effect of an electrically charged body as giving rise to stresses in its immediate surroundings... [and] in ever widening circles, gradually diminishing... These stresses... [i.e.,] the fields are intermediaries between the material particles and assume the burden of Newtons action at a distance. ...[O]ne set of Maxwells equations is to the effect that, in the presence of a magnetic field which changes in the course of time, an electric field arises which is not caused by the presence of any electric charge. This [is] the law of electromagnetic induction... From his theory, Maxwell... predicted that magnetic fields propogate at... the speed of light. ...The laws of mechanics involve only accelerations, not velocities: the laws of electromagnetism involve a universal velocity [c]..."
Special relativity"Poincaré came very close to inventing special relativity in the years 1900-1904, showing in particular that Lorentz transformations form a group; hence in the case of the Poincaré group, the name is accurate."
Special relativity"If there is such a thing as a universal speed... Newtonian physics... must be reviewed. As long as the laws of physics were concerned only with accelerations... no conceivable experiment... would lead to the selection of one particular frame of reference as fundamental. But if in empty space light propogates at the universal speed... then a careful determination of the apparent speed of light relative to laboratory apparatus should reveal the [absolute] velocity of that apparatus.... There should exist one frame of reference with respect to which light does travel everywhere at the speed c. Call this... the frame of absolute rest. ...[W]ith respect to any other frame...the apparent speed of light should be less than c in the direction in which the frame is traveling relative to the frame of absolute rest; it should be greater than c in the opposite direction."
Special relativity