Special relativity
A patent clerk shows that time and space depend on how you are moving.
- When
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Industrial, Holocene
Einstein's 1905 paper takes two premises — the laws of physics are the same for all uniformly moving observers, and light travels at the same speed for all of them — and derives that simultaneity is relative, moving clocks run slow and moving objects contract. A short follow-up gives the equivalence of mass and energy. He published four foundational papers that year, in his spare time, while examining patents in Bern.