Relativity: The Special and General Theory

Special Relativity was originally proposed in 1905 by Albert Einstein in the paper 'On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies'. The inconsistency of Newtonian mechanics with Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism and the lack of experimental con rmation for a hypothesized luminiferous aether led to the development of special relativity, which corrects mechanics to handle situations involving motions nearing the speed of light. Special relativity implies a wide range of consequences, which have been experimentally veri ed, including length contraction, time dilation, relativistic mass, mass-energy equivalence, a universal speed limit and relativity of simultaneity. It has replaced the conventional notion of an absolute universal time with the notion of a time that is dependent on reference frame and spatial position. General Relativity (GR, also known as the general theory of relativity or GTR) is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and the current