A skeptical look at the Special Relativity narrative | Sociology and Pure Physics | N J Wildberger

The usual story of Special Relativity (SR) is built from two Postulates introduced by A. Einstein in his famous 1905 paper “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies“ in which he subsequently derives the Lorentz transformations and introduces the mind-bending notions of length contraction, time dilation and mass expansion as (relative) speeds approach that of light. But does this story really ring true?? Here we look critically at this standard narrative, and show that there is in fact another hero to the story (!): Galileo Galilei who really had the critical understanding that underpins the subject. In fact we claim that SR is a relatively simple logical consequence of taking Galileo’s Invariance Principle to heart and working out carefully and consistently the logical and necessary implications of it. We consider also the important insights of W. Ignatowsky, along with P. Frank / H. Rothe, from around 1910 about Einstein’s second Postulate. And clarify the very important d