Thread 16842481

how the FUCK did Einstein figure out that c is equal in all inertial frames sitting in an office with a pad and pencil? and better yet, what is the actual explanation for why this is? it makes no fucking logical sense whatsoever to my brainlet mind and goes against the entire framework of all physics up to that point. I understand that its true because mathematically it makes predictions we confirm to be correct, but WHY and HOW did this nigga realize it just goofing off? bonus question: what is the actual relationship between space and time explained in a way a retard can digest?

>>16842481 (OP)
He spent lots of time studying James Maxwell's differential equations and theories on electromagnetism. Also Newton, Poincare, Gauss, etc. Relativity just builds off former scientific genius.

>>16842481 (OP)
He didn't. Many physicists were trying to get a clearer picture of electro-magnetism. Lorentz and Poincare both came up with similar math to special relativity (lorentz contractions are still used today), which were ment to explain experiments like the michelson-morly experiment, which showed that the Earth couldn't be moving through a stationary EM aether (however there was an idea of aether dragging). However they never fully got the ontology correct, which is were Einstein comes in. One of the first problems he tried to explain was why moving a conductor hoop at a constant velocity over a magnet would produce a magnetic force in the frame of the magnet, and an electric force in the frame of the conductor, when classic relativity (galilean) says both frames should agree. This, along with prior experiments and theories gets him to ask two postulates , what if c and the laws of physics are the same in all reference frames, then what happens. With this idea, he can explain E&M perfectly, as well as all the experiments measuring the speed of light.

So tldr, it was in the air, he was just the one to really get the correct interpretation. I would say special relativity is a much more minor accomplishment than general relatively and his work on the foundations of quantum mechanics

>>16842481 (OP)
it was a well know issue in physics at the time that maxwell's equations in free space yielded wave solutions with a constant velocity that depends only on the physical constants ep0 and mu0 which were determined by other experiments
the puzzle was what medium was waving and how motion of the observer relative to this medium factored into the mathematical description
most physicist at the time were coming up with increasingly implausible theories describing a medium with properties completely unlike any known medium. these were aether theories.

einstein had the insight that if the speed of light was constant for all observers, than something had to give with time and distance to keep speed constant.

>bonus question:
read about the train thought experiments/gedanken. anyone can follow them
https://aether.lbl.gov/www/classes/p139/exp/gedanken.html

>>16842505
>michelson-morly experiment
of note, it's unclear if einstein was familiar with the results of this experiment

>>16842481 (OP)
>it makes no fucking logical sense whatsoever to my brainlet mind and goes against the entire framework of all physics up to that point.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1504.02423
>A different approach, however, was followed by von Ignatowsky.2 Only six years after the formulation of special relativity, he proved that the Lorentz transformations arise under quite general conditions, without assuming a priori the existence of an invariant speed. Von Ignatowsky showed that the only admissible transformations consistent with the principle of inertia, the isotropy of space, the absence of preferred inertial frames, and a group structure (i.e., closure under composition), are the Lorentz transformations, in which c can be any velocity scale, or the Galilei transformations.
Galilean transformations are experimentally ruled out, so you're left with Lorentz transformations which give you an invariant c.

thank you for these great responses and resources, sci-anons.

>>16842481 (OP)
>how the FUCK did Einstein figure out that c is equal in all inertial frames sitting in an office with a pad and pencil?

It was actually David Hilbert.

>>16842505
phwoar good post diss

>>16842511
corr prola mental diss post

makes you fink innit

>>16842481 (OP)
Are you just discovering that math can be used to test ideas you can't test physically? As for how he got there on his own, he never assumed he had reached a final conclusion and genuenly enjoyed being Sisyphus. Do the same.

>>16842481 (OP)
It was a lucky guess. He said himself that he now knew what the creator of flappy bird must have felt like