| abstract
| - The Special Theory of Relativity (SR) is a theory invented in 1905 by Einstein to explain several experimental results. Since then it has been found to explain a wide range of experimental results. SR is not a mathematical game or just a hypothesis. SR is a physical theory that has been well tested many times. A detailed account of the early history of SRT is given in: Arthur L. Miller, Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity: Emergence and early interpretation, Addison Wesley, 1981, ISBN 0-201-04680-6. When A. Einstein wrote his famous paper: “The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” in 1905, he already had experimental support for his new theory: ...Examples of this sort, together with the unsuccessful attempts to discover any motion of the Earth relatively to the “light medium” suggest that the phenomena of electrodynamics as well as of mechanics possess no properties corresponding to the idea of absolute rest. They suggest rather that, as has already been shown to the first order of small quantities, the same laws of electrodynamics and optics will be valid for all frames of reference for which the equations of mechanics hold good...What was the experimental support for this claim? There were several experiments concerning the electrodynamics of moving bodies that are not very well known today; but Einstein knew of numerous examples. Many of these experiments were reviewed in H.A. Lorentz's important paper “On the influence of the earth's motion on luminiferous phenomena”, Versl. Kon. Akad. Wettensh. Amsterdam, 297 (1886). Lorentz showed that Stokes' theory of light, which assumed complete dragging of the aether at the surface of the Earth and decreased to zero dragging far away, had severe problems with aberration and the results of Arago and Airy.
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