The history of special relativity consists of many theoretical results and empirical findings obtained by Albert A. Michelson, Hendrik Lorentz, Henri Poincaré and others. It culminated in the theory of special relativity proposed by Albert Einstein and subsequent work of Max Planck, Hermann Minkowski and others.
Introduction
Although Isaac Newton based his physics on absolute time and space, he also adhered to the principle of relativity of Galileo Galilei restating it precisely for mechanical systems. This can be stated as: as far as the laws of mechanics are concerned, all observers in inertial motion are equally privileged, and no preferred state of motion can be attributed to any particular inertial observer. 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 through that medium, which suggested that it should be possible to experimentally determine motion relative to the aether.
The failure of any known experiment to detect motion through the aether led Hendrik Lorentz, starting in 1892, to develop a theory of electrodynamics based on an immobile luminiferous aether (about whose material constitution Lorentz did not speculate), physical length contraction, and a "local time" in which Maxwell's equations retain their form in all inertial frames of reference. Working with Lorentz's aether theory, Henri Poincaré, having earlier proposed the "relativity principle" as a general law of nature (including electrodynamics and gravitation), used this principle in 1905 to correct Lorentz's preliminary transformation formulas, resulting in an exact set of equations that are now called the Lorentz transformations. A little later in the same year Albert Einstein published his original paper on special relativity in which, again based on the relativity principle, he independently derived and radically reinterpreted the Lorentz transformations by changing the fundamental definitions of space and time intervals, while abandoning the absolute simultaneity of Galilean kinematics, thus avoiding the need for any reference to a luminiferous aether in classical electrodynamics. Subsequent work of Hermann Minkowski, in which he introduced a 4-dimensional geometric "spacetime" model for Einstein's version of special relativity, paved the way for Einstein's later development of his general theory of relativity and laid the foundations of relativistic field theories.
Aether and electrodynamics of moving bodies
Aether models and Maxwell's equations
Following the work of Thomas Young (1804) and Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1816), it was believed that light propagates as a transverse wave within an elastic medium called luminiferous aether. However, a distinction was made between optical and electrodynamical phenomena so it was necessary to create specific aether models for all phenomena. Attempts to unify those models or to create a complete mechanical description of them did not succeed, but after considerable work by many scientists, including Michael Faraday and Lord Kelvin, James Clerk Maxwell (1864) developed an accurate theory of electromagnetism by deriving a set of equations in electricity, magnetism and inductance, named Maxwell's equations. He first proposed that light was in fact undulations (electromagnetic radiation) in the same aetherial medium that is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena. However, Maxwell's theory was unsatisfactory regarding the optics of moving bodies, and while he was able to present a complete mathematical model, he was not able to provide a coherent mechanical description of the aether.
After Heinrich Hertz in 1887 demonstrated the existence of electromagnetic waves, Maxwell's theory was widely accepted. In addition, Oliver Heaviside and Hertz further developed the theory and introduced modernized versions of Maxwell's equations. The "Maxwell–Hertz" or "Heaviside–Hertz" equations subsequently formed an important basis for the further development of electrodynamics, and Heaviside's notation is still used today. Other important contributions to Maxwell's theory were made by George FitzGerald, Joseph John Thomson, John Henry Poynting, Hendrik Lorentz, and Joseph Larmor.