Related papers: Poincare and Special Relativity
.This article reexamines the genesis of special relativity by situating the contributions of Lorentz, Poincare, and Einstein within the scientific, documentary, and editorial context of the years 1895--1913. It emphasizes the rapid…
This work deals with the questions of absolute space and relativity. In particular, an alternative derivation of the effects described by special relativity is provided, which is based on a description that assumes a privileged reference…
Retrospectively, in 1905, Special Relativity seemed palpably close; it was "in the air". But apparently it needed the fresh approach of an unprejudiced newcomer, Einstein, to take the final step. I report, in a pedagogical fashion, on the…
Special relativity was discovered at the eve of the century, but finds its roots in the 19th century efforts to understand the optics and electromagnetism of moving bodies. These roots are reviewed in Parts 1 and 2, the latter being…
Jean-Marc Ginoux's recent book, "Poincar\'e, Einstein and the Discovery of Special Relativity: An End to the Controversy" (2024), seeks to close the debate over the respective roles of Poincar\'e and Einstein. Yet what is presented as an…
In this article, we argue that the theory of special relativity, as formulated by Einstein, is a philosophical rather than a scientific theory. What is scientific and experimentally supported is the formalism of the relativistic mechanics…
In this article we pay tribute to Herbert Dingle for his early call to re-assess special relativity from philosophical and logical perspectives. However, we disagree with Dingle about a number of issues particularly his failure to…
We compare the results obtained by interpreting some fundamental relativistic experiments from the point of view of two alternative theories: Einstein's special relativity theory and the Lorentz-Poincare theory admitting the existence of a…
This paper provides a systematic response to the criticisms raised by Jean-Marc Ginoux in response to my review of his book on the history of relativity. Whereas my review was written in a strictly academic manner, Ginoux's commentary…
Einstein's reply to Weyl about the importance in General Relativity of the identity of the sources of spectral lines is well know. We show that, already in Special Relavitity, Einstein's definition of the unit of time from the frequency of…
The book presents ideas by H. Poincare and H. Minkowski according to those the essence and the main content of the relativity theory are the following: the space and time form a unique four-dimensional continuum supplied by the…
Before 1905, Poincar\'e stressed the importance of the method of clocks and their synchronization, but unlike Einstein, magnet and conductor (asymmetries in Lorentz's theory regarding the explanation of Faraday's induction) or chasing a…
We show that the kinematics underlying Poincare's elongated ellipse, immediately deduced from Lorentz Transformation (LT), is not the same as Einstein's kinematics. The two main differences are : On one hand the relationship of Lorentz…
Einstein based his special theory of relativity on two postulates: (a) physical laws appear the same in all inertial frames, and (b) the speed of light in vacuum is an observer-independent constant. However, it is already known that the…
We show that the image by the Lorentz transformation of a spherical (circular) light wave, emitted by a moving source, is not a spherical (circular) light wave but an ellipsoidal (elliptical) light wave. Poincare's ellipsoid (ellipse) is…
This work analyzes the difficulties in learning and teaching Einstein's theory of special relativity. An extensive bibliographic review has been performed, considering articles published in the most relevant journals on science education,…
Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity was proposed a little over a hundred years back. It remained a bedrock of twentieth century physics right up to Quantum Field Theory. However, the failure over several decades to provide a unified…
We deduce from Poincare's ellipsoidal wavefronts a relativistic Doppler-Fizeau formula that is not the same as 1905 Einstein's one. Longitudinally, Einstein's formula and Poincare's formula are the same. The question of an experimental test…
In a comparison of the principles of special relativity and of quantum mechanics, the former theory is marked by its relative economy and apparent explanatory simplicity. A number of theorists have thus been led to search for a small number…
We suggest that not only quanta may have played a role in Einstein's ideas on relativity, but that they themselves may be related to the dynamical and relativistic behaviour of the electromagnetic field exhibited in a Poincar\'e's 1900…