Physics · 1905
On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies
Albert Einstein
Overview
Einstein's founding paper on the special theory of relativity. Starting from two postulates — that the laws of physics are identical in all inertial frames and that light travels at the same speed for every observer — he reconstructed the relationship between space and time without invoking a luminiferous ether.
Replaced Newtonian absolute space and time and reshaped twentieth-century physics.
Key findings
Methods
A thought-experiment-driven theoretical derivation. Einstein analysed how observers in relative motion would synchronise clocks and measure lengths using light signals, deriving the Lorentz transformation from his two postulates rather than from mechanical assumptions about the ether.
Keywords
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