- What two postulates did Einstein start from in deriving special relativity?
- What happens to time, length, and simultaneity for an observer in motion under special relativity?
- Why do GPS satellites need to correct for the effects Einstein predicted in this paper?
Special Relativity
Einstein's theory of space and time at constant velocity.
- What relationship between mass and energy did Einstein establish in his September 1905 paper?
- Why does even a small amount of mass correspond to such a large quantity of energy?
- What was the luminiferous ether supposed to explain, and why did physicists believe light needed one?
- How did Michelson and Morley's interferometer attempt to detect Earth's motion through the ether?
- Why did a null result unsettle classical physics for nearly two decades before Einstein resolved it?
- What instruments did Michelson refine to make his light-speed measurements so precise?
- What were the two 'clouds' Kelvin identified in his 1900 lecture as physics' remaining unsolved problems?
- How did the two clouds Kelvin described end up resolving into quantum mechanics and relativity?
- How did Minkowski's four-dimensional spacetime reinterpret Einstein's original formulation of special relativity?
- How do cosmic-ray-produced muons reaching sea level serve as experimental proof of time dilation?
- Why did the Nobel Committee choose the photoelectric effect over relativity to honor Einstein?
- What is the whole-number rule, and what did its small deviations turn out to signify?
- How did the energy released by the split lithium nucleus confirm Einstein's E=mc² with direct measurement?
- Why does splitting a uranium nucleus release so much energy despite the mass deficit being tiny?
- How did the energy released by the split lithium nucleus confirm Einstein's mass-energy equation?
- What three discoveries did Einstein publish in his 1905 annus mirabilis papers?
- Why does a charged particle moving through water faster than light travels in that medium produce a glow?
- Why did the transatlantic TV signal take about a quarter of a second to cross the ocean?
- Why would faster-than-light neutrinos have threatened special relativity if the result had held up?