The Principle of Relativity ( Original Papers) by Albert Einstein and Hermann Minkowski

This book is by no means a comprehensive study of Minkowski's and Einstein's space-time formalism of special relativity. The mathematician, Hermann Minkowski was Einstein's former mathematics professor at the Zürich Polytechnic. During his studies at the Polytechnic Einstein skipped Minkowski's classes. In 1904 Max Born arrived in the first time to Göttingen. Many years later Born wrote his recollections. In the summer of 1905, Minkowski and Hilbert led an advanced seminar on mathematical physics, on electrodynamical theory. Minkowski told Born later that it came to him as a great shock when Einstein published his paper in which the equivalence of the different local times of observers moving relative to each other was pronounced; for he had reached the same conclusions independently. He never made a priority claim and always gave Einstein his full share in the great discovery. In his famous talk, "Space and Time" Minkowski wrote that the credit of first recognizing sharply that t and t' are to be treated the same, is of A. Einstein. TABLE OF CONTENTS HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 8 Conclusion 20 Note A. 22 On The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies By A. Einstein. 23 INTRODUCTION. 24 I.—KINEMATICAL PORTION. 25 § 1. Definition of Synchronism. 25 § 2. On the Relativity of Length and Time. 26 Relativity of Time. 27 § 3. Theory of Coordinate and Time-Transformation from a stationary system to a system which moves relatively to this with uniform velocity. 28 § 4. The physical significance of the equations obtained concerning moving rigid bodies and moving clocks. 34 § 5. Addition-Theorem of Velocities. 36 II.—ELECTRODYNAMICAL PART. 39 SPACE AND TIME 128 The Foundation of the Generalised Theory of Relativity By A. Einstein. From Annalen der Physik 4.49.1916. 142 A Principal…