The special theory of relativity began its development at the beginning of the 20th century, namely in 1905. Its foundations were considered in the work of Albert Einstein "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".
With the help of this fundamental work, the scientist raised a number of questions that had no answers at that time. So, for example, he suggested that Maxwell's teaching does not fully correspond to reality. After all, the interaction, according to the laws of electrodynamics, between a current-carrying conductor and a magnet depends solely on the relativity of their movement. But then there is a contradiction with the established views that these two cases of influence on each other should be strictly distinguished. Based on these findings, he suggested that any coordinate systems that depend on the laws of mechanics, to the same extent, and sometimes to a greater extent, depend on optical and electrodynamic laws. Einstein called this conclusion the "principle of relativity".
The basic elements of special relativity have become revolutionary assumptions thatmarked the beginning of an absolutely new round of development of physical science. The scientist completely pushed aside the classical ideas about the absoluteness of time and space, as well as the relativity of Galileo. He also took a step towards confirming at the level of theory the finiteness of the speed of light, empirically proven by Hertz. He laid the foundations for studying the independence of the speed and direction of the light source.
Today, the special theory of relativity makes it possible to significantly speed up the process of studying the Universe. The doctrine developed by Albert Einstein made it possible to eliminate many of the contradictions that arose in physics at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The main goal pursued by the special theory of relativity is to provide a setup
links between space and time. This greatly simplifies the understanding of the entire world order, both in particular and in general. The postulates of the special theory of relativity allow us to understand many phenomena: the reduction of durations and lengths during the movement of the body, the increase in mass with increasing speed (mass defect), the lack of connection between different events occurring in one instant (if they take place at completely different points in the space-time continuum). He explains all this by the fact that the maximum propagation speed of any signals in the Universe does not exceed the speed of light in vacuum.
Special relativity determines that the mass of a photon at rest is zero, which implies thatany third-party observer will never be able to catch up with a photon at superluminal speed and be able to move further with it. This means that the speed of light is an absolute value and cannot be surpassed.
Albert Einstein gave a new qualitative leap in the development of physical science throughout the world, and on the scale of the Universe.
