3 ms·

> Einstein did not discover that the speed of light was fixed. This was a consequence of Maxwell's research on electromagnetism in the late 19th C. The princip

> Einstein did not discover that the speed of light was fixed. This was a consequence of Maxwell's research on electromagnetism in the late 19th C. The principle of relativity, which what OP was talking about, cannot be derived from Maxwell's equations alone.

mjburgess 3y ago
The speed of light in maxwell's eqns is non-relativistic. That is itself basically just the insight and founding principle of special relativity. The rest is just to work out how to revise relativity to account for non-relativistic velocities -- and this is fairly trivial at the special relativity level. More novel, from einstein, was GR but many insights here can be found "in the air" amongst professional physicists, in particular you could see GR as following from a formal elaboration of Mach's principle (itself, in many ways, just a reply to a thought experiment Netwon had made centuries earlier) The point is that "non-crank" physics doesnt have the crank-like "moments of genuis" that people assume. It isnt just plucking ideas from the air. Those ideas are heavily embeded in thousands of years of reflection
- cma 3y ago
  Had anyone presaged the special relativity energy mass equation that would result?
  - Kranar 3y ago
    E = mc^2? No, that was absolutely novel. But special relativity? Yes, Henri Poincare had already come up with a mathematically equivalent theory to special relativity. Einstein's is a much simpler theory by all means, but the original commenter talking about it like it came out of no where and people must have thought Einstein was crazy or lost his mind, that's just a gross misunderstanding of history. If anything, Einstein's theory of special relativity gained acceptance rather quickly because it basically converged to where physics was already heading.

3 ms·

> Einstein did not discover that the speed of light was fixed. This was a consequence of Maxwell's research on electromagnetism in the late 19th C. The princip

by emblaegh 3y ago

mjburgess 3y ago
The speed of light in maxwell's eqns is non-relativistic. That is itself basically just the insight and founding principle of special relativity. The rest is just to work out how to revise relativity to account for non-relativistic velocities -- and this is fairly trivial at the special relativity level. More novel, from einstein, was GR but many insights here can be found "in the air" amongst professional physicists, in particular you could see GR as following from a formal elaboration of Mach's principle (itself, in many ways, just a reply to a thought experiment Netwon had made centuries earlier) The point is that "non-crank" physics doesnt have the crank-like "moments of genuis" that people assume. It isnt just plucking ideas from the air. Those ideas are heavily embeded in thousands of years of reflection
- cma 3y ago
  Had anyone presaged the special relativity energy mass equation that would result?
  - Kranar 3y ago
    E = mc^2? No, that was absolutely novel. But special relativity? Yes, Henri Poincare had already come up with a mathematically equivalent theory to special relativity. Einstein's is a much simpler theory by all means, but the original commenter talking about it like it came out of no where and people must have thought Einstein was crazy or lost his mind, that's just a gross misunderstanding of history. If anything, Einstein's theory of special relativity gained acceptance rather quickly because it basically converged to where physics was already heading.