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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 treatment, the theory is presented as being based on just two postulates:
Feb 1, 2022 · Special relativity is an explanation of how speed affects mass, time and space. The theory includes a way for the speed of light to define the relationship between energy...
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Apr 12, 2024 · Learn about the physical theory of relativity formed by Albert Einstein in 1905, which deals with the behaviour of light and objects moving at high speeds. Find out the key concepts, equations, and experiments of special relativity, and how it differs from general relativity.
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- The mechanical universe
- Light and the ether
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relativity, wide-ranging physical theories formed by the German-born physicist Albert Einstein. With his theories of special relativity (1905) and general relativity (1915), Einstein overthrew many assumptions underlying earlier physical theories, redefining in the process the fundamental concepts of space, time, matter, energy, and gravity. Along with quantum mechanics, relativity is central to modern physics. In particular, relativity provides the basis for understanding cosmic processes and the geometry of the universe itself.
(Read Einstein’s 1926 Britannica essay on space-time.)
“Special relativity” is limited to objects that are moving with respect to inertial frames of reference—i.e, in a state of uniform motion with respect to one another such that an observer cannot, by purely mechanical experiments, distinguish one from the other. Beginning with the behaviour of light (and all other electromagnetic radiation), the theory of special relativity draws conclusions that are contrary to everyday experience but fully confirmed by experiments. Special relativity revealed that the speed of light is a limit that can be approached but not reached by any material object; it is the origin of the most famous equation in science, E = mc2; and it has led to other tantalizing outcomes, such as the “twin paradox.”
“General relativity” is concerned with gravity, one of the fundamental forces in the universe. (The others are electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force.) Gravity defines macroscopic behaviour, and so general relativity describes large-scale physical phenomena such as planetary dynamics, the birth and death of stars, black holes, and the evolution of the universe.
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Physics and Natural Law
Relativity changed the scientific conception of the universe, which began in efforts to grasp the dynamic behaviour of matter. In Renaissance times, the great Italian physicist Galileo Galilei moved beyond Aristotle’s philosophy to introduce the modern study of mechanics, which requires quantitative measurements of bodies moving in space and time. His work and that of others led to basic concepts, such as velocity, which is the distance a body covers in a given direction per unit time; acceleration, the rate of change of velocity; mass, the amount of material in a body; and force, a push or pull on a body.
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The next major stride occurred in the late 17th century, when the British scientific genius Isaac Newton formulated his three famous laws of motion, the first and second of which are of special concern in relativity. Newton’s first law, known as the law of inertia, states that a body that is not acted upon by external forces undergoes no acceleration—either remaining at rest or continuing to move in a straight line at constant speed. Newton’s second law states that a force applied to a body changes its velocity by producing an acceleration that is proportional to the force and inversely proportional to the mass of the body. In constructing his system, Newton also defined space and time, taking both to be absolutes that are unaffected by anything external. Time, he wrote, “flows equably,” while space “remains always similar and immovable.”
Newton’s laws proved valid in every application, as in calculating the behaviour of falling bodies, but they also provided the framework for his landmark law of gravity (the term, derived from the Latin gravis, or “heavy,” had been in use since at least the 16th century). Beginning with the (perhaps mythical) observation of a falling apple and then considering the Moon as it orbits Earth, Newton concluded that an invisible force acts between the Sun and its planets. He formulated a comparatively simple mathematical expression for the gravitational force; it states that every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force that operates through empty space and that varies with the masses of the objects and the distance between them.
The law of gravity was brilliantly successful in explaining the mechanism behind Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, which the German astronomer Johannes Kepler had formulated at the beginning of the 17th century. Newton’s mechanics and law of gravity, along with his assumptions about the nature of space and time, seemed wholly successful in explaining the dynamics of the universe, from motion on Earth to cosmic events.
However, this success at explaining natural phenomena came to be tested from an unexpected direction—the behaviour of light, whose intangible nature had puzzled philosophers and scientists for centuries. In 1865 the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell showed that light is an electromagnetic wave with oscillating electrical and magnetic components. Maxwell’s equations predicted that electromagnetic waves would travel through empty space at a speed of almost exactly 3 × 108 metres per second (186,000 miles per second)—i.e., according with the measured speed of light. Experiments soon confirmed the electromagnetic nature of light and established its speed as a fundamental parameter of the universe.
Maxwell’s remarkable result answered long-standing questions about light, but it raised another fundamental issue: if light is a moving wave, what medium supports it? Ocean waves and sound waves consist of the progressive oscillatory motion of molecules of water and of atmospheric gases, respectively. But what is it that vibrates to make a moving light wave? Or to put it another way, how does the energy embodied in light travel from point to point?
For Maxwell and other scientists of the time, the answer was that light traveled in a hypothetical medium called the ether (aether). Supposedly, this medium permeated all space without impeding the motion of planets and stars; yet it had to be more rigid than steel so that light waves could move through it at high speed, in the same way that a taut guitar string supports fast mechanical vibrations. Despite this contradiction, the idea of the ether seemed essential—until a definitive experiment disproved it.
In 1887 the German-born American physicist A.A. Michelson and the American chemist Edward Morley made exquisitely precise measurements to determine how Earth’s motion through the ether affected the measured speed of light. In classical mechanics, Earth’s movement would add to or subtract from the measured speed of light waves, just as the speed of a ship would add to or subtract from the speed of ocean waves as measured from the ship. But the Michelson-Morley experiment had an unexpected outcome, for the measured speed of light remained the same regardless of Earth’s motion. This could only mean that the ether had no meaning and that the behaviour of light could not be explained by classical physics. The explanation emerged, instead, from Einstein’s theory of special relativity.
Relativity is a physical theory by Albert Einstein that redefines space, time, matter, energy, and gravity. Learn about special relativity, its equations, its implications, and its history from Britannica.
Learn the basics of special relativity, the theory that changed our view of space and time, from Prof. Markus Klute. Explore topics such as length contraction, time dilation, Lorentz transformation, and more through lectures, problem sets, and exams.
Special relativity. Einstein’s Gedankenexperiment s. Scientists such as Austrian physicist Ernst Mach and French mathematician Henri Poincaré had critiqued classical mechanics or contemplated the behaviour of light and the meaning of the ether before Einstein.
Learn how Einstein developed the special theory of relativity based on two postulates: the constancy of light speed and the equivalence of inertial frames. Explore the scientific problems and experiments that led to his revolutionary theory.
