The Essential History of Special Relativity

The genesis of the theory of relativity was a long process that involved three major players and their critical reactions to the electrodynamics of moving bodies.

Lorentz made a key step when he sought to develop a mechanics that would obey the principle of relativity and Maxwell's equations. Lorentz exploited the invariance properties of the fundamental equations for the interaction between electrons and fields, and thus accounted for the absence of effects of the motion of the earth through the ether, but only to a certain approximation.

Poincaré made this absence of effects a general postulate and elevated the principle of relativity even higher than Lorentz did. He put the Lorentz transformations into a perfect form, discovered their group properties and gave them a physical interpretation. He used these transformation equations to reveal the perfect invariance of the electromagnetic equations and to create a Lorentz-invariant theory of gravity.

Einstein made Poincaré's theory completely symmetric by putting space and time in any two inertial systems on exactly the same footing. He also simplified relativity by eliminating the ether and by declaring two previously accepted results were fundamental postulates. From the two postulates, Einstein derived the Lorentz transformation.

Special Relativity Directory - Everything Important

The next significant development in the history of relativity occurred when I eliminated everything from relativity that was not amenable to experimental verification. This was achieved by specifying an irreducible axiom set that produces the least confusion for beginners, which is the set of absolute minimum requirements for a relativistic theory to exist. My theory derives the Lorentz transformation without using Einstein's first or second postulate.

The Axiomatization of Physics - Step 1

The reductions and simplifications created in this theory are both dramatic and unpleasant. The consequences are severe in that the whole edifice of special relativity has been reduced to a near tautology, which requires more work. The theory states that all the laws of physics may be divided into two distinct categories. There are physical laws that are the same in all inertial frames of reference and there may be laws that aren't.

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