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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.
In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory of the relationship between space and time.In Albert Einstein's 1905 paper, On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, the theory is presented as being based on just two postulates: [p 1] [1] [2]
Special relativity is a theory of the structure of spacetime. It was introduced in Einstein's 1905 paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" (for the contributions of many other physicists and mathematicians, see History of special relativity). Special relativity is based on two postulates which are contradictory in classical mechanics:
There is Robertson's test theory (1949) which predicts different experimental results from Einstein's special relativity, and there is the Mansouri–Sexl theory (1977) which is equivalent to Robertson's theory. There is also Edward's theory (1963) which cannot be called a test theory because it is physically equivalent to special relativity.
1905 – Albert Einstein publishes his special theory of relativity, including the mass–energy equivalence that would be later written as E = mc 2. 1906 – Alfred Bucherer introduces the name theory of relativity, based on Max Planck’s term relative theory.
The theory, now called the special theory of relativity, distinguishes it from his later general theory of relativity, which considers all observers to be equivalent. Acknowledging the role of Max Planck in the early dissemination of his ideas, Einstein wrote in 1913 "The attention that this theory so quickly received from colleagues is surely ...
Doubly special relativity [1] [2] (DSR) – also called deformed special relativity or, by some [who?], extra-special relativity – is a modified theory of special relativity in which there is not only an observer-independent maximum velocity (the speed of light), but also an observer-independent maximum energy scale (the Planck energy) and/or a minimum length scale (the Planck length). [3]
This article will use the Einstein summation convention. The theory of general relativity required the adaptation of existing theories of physical, electromagnetic, and quantum effects to account for non-Euclidean geometries. These physical theories modified by general relativity are described below.