Abstract
The theory of relativity, due primarily to H. A. Lorentz in the 1890s and Albert Einstein in the early 1900s, revolutionized scientific thinking. This chapter gives a brief introduction to the ideas of “special relativity”—the subject of a 1905 paper by Einstein. The special theory of relativity considers the viewpoints of different observers moving with constant velocities, as in the previous chapter. But the key postulate and the conclusions will now be quite different and, for most people, surprising.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1984 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Driver, R.D. (1984). Special Relativity. In: Why Math?. Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1108-2_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1108-2_9
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-94427-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-1108-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive