History of special relativity

The development of special relativity from nineteenth-century debates about light and motion through Einstein’s 1905 formulation and the theory’s subsequent testing and acceptance.

Michelson–Morley experiment: An 1887 interferometer experiment that sought evidence of Earth’s motion through the luminiferous ether. Its null result became the best-known experimental challenge to simple ether-drift predictions.
Albert Einstein: A theoretical physicist whose 1905 work introduced special relativity as a theory of space, time, and motion. His paper gave the theory its defining conceptual formulation.
Hendrik Lorentz: A Dutch physicist whose electron theory and transformations described electromagnetic phenomena in moving systems. His work supplied mathematical structures that Einstein reinterpreted as relations between inertial frames.
Kennedy–Thorndike experiment: An interferometer experiment testing whether the speed of light depends on the laboratory’s velocity through space. Its result tested a consequence beyond the original Michelson–Morley comparison.
Mass–energy equivalence: The relation between a system’s mass and energy, commonly expressed as E = mc². Einstein derived this consequence in 1905, extending the theory beyond measurements of space and time.
Luminiferous aether: A hypothetical medium once thought to carry light waves through space. The theory’s development turned on whether light required this stationary medium.
On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies: Einstein’s 1905 paper presenting special relativity and deriving consequences for moving observers. This is the work in which Einstein stated the two postulates and developed their implications.
Hermann Minkowski: A mathematician and physicist who formulated special relativity in terms of four-dimensional spacetime. His geometric presentation made the theory’s unified treatment of space and time influential.
Ives–Stilwell experiment: An experiment measuring the transverse Doppler effect in fast-moving ions. It tested relativistic time dilation through spectral shifts in moving atoms.
Relativistic mechanics: The mechanics of objects moving at speeds where relativistic effects are significant. It replaced Newtonian mechanics as the accurate framework for high-speed motion.

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Edward W. MorleyRelated: Morley’s experiment became a prominent part of the later account of relativity’s experimental context.