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Maxwell's equations, or Maxwell–Heaviside equations, ... This was a major source of inspiration for the development of relativity theory. Indeed, even the ...
However, as to electromagnetic theory and electrodynamics, during the 19th century the wave theory of light as a disturbance of a "light medium" or luminiferous aether was widely accepted, the theory reaching its most developed form in the work of James Clerk Maxwell. According to Maxwell's theory, all optical and electrical phenomena propagate ...
Maxwell's equations also inspired Albert Einstein in developing the theory of special relativity. [13] The experimental proof of Maxwell's equations was demonstrated by Heinrich Hertz in a series of experiments in the 1890s. [14] After that, Maxwell's equations were fully accepted by scientists.
Joseph Larmor and Hendrik Lorentz discovered that Maxwell's equations, used in the theory of electromagnetism, were invariant only by a certain change of time and length units. This left some confusion among physicists, many of whom thought that a luminiferous aether was incompatible with the relativity principle, in the way it was defined by ...
The term "theory of relativity" was based on the expression "relative theory" (German: Relativtheorie) used in 1906 by Planck, who emphasized how the theory uses the principle of relativity. In the discussion section of the same paper, Alfred Bucherer used for the first time the expression "theory of relativity" (German: Relativitätstheorie ...
The physical theory given by classical mechanics, and Newtonian gravity is consistent with Galilean relativity, but not special relativity. Conversely, Maxwell's equations are not consistent with Galilean relativity unless one postulates the existence of a physical aether.
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 ]
Rosser's book Classical Electromagnetism via Relativity was popular, [9] as was Anthony French's treatment in his textbook [10] which illustrated diagrammatically the proper charge density. One author proclaimed, "Maxwell — Out of Newton, Coulomb, and Einstein". [11]