Special Relativity

Einstein (1905)



Einstein's first theory of relativity, which he published in 1905, broke away from the Newtonian reliance on space and time as immutable frames of reference. This theory was immediately recognized by the scientific community as having profound implications for physics and cosmology.

Einstein's main goal was to address the apparent inconsistencies in Maxwell's electromagnetic theory. No wonder Einstein named his paper The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.

Einstein's 1905 paper
on Special Relativity

Later to become known as the Special Theory of Relativity, its first postulate was that the speed of light is the same for all observers, regardless of their motion relative to the source of the light. The second postulate was that all observers moving at constant speed should observe the same physical laws. Putting these two ideas together, Einstein showed that the only way this can happen is if time intervals and/or lengths change according to the speed of the system relative to the observer's frame of reference. This flies against our everyday experience but has since been demonstrated to hold in a number of very solid experiments. For example, scientists have shown that an atomic clock travelling at high speed in a jet plane ticks more slowly than its stationary counterpart.

The Lorentz Transformations


The Lorentz Transformations are mathematical equations that allow us to transform from one coordinate system to another. When you analyze properties from one frame to another, it is necessary to first transform from one coordinate system to another. Thus, we can utilize the Lorentz Transforms to convert length and time from one frame to another. The previous statements imply that lengths and times are not the same for objects that are in motion with respect to each other.

Postulates of Special Relativity:

Propogation of Light-The velocity of light is independent of the motion of its source

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