B Development of Special Relativity

[Herman Trivilino]

Were others thinking that Maxwell was wrong (and also that the results of Michelson and Morley's experiment were wrong) because the speed of light can't be constant without contradicting Newton and Galileo's statements that time is absolute?

I think that ever since it was established in the early 1800's that light is a wave, the concept of an aether was inferred because all other experiences with waves involved a medium that's doing the waving. Therefore it was assumed that Maxwell's equations were valid in the rest frame of the aether. Michaelson-Morley attempted to detect the speed of Earth through the aether.

The notion of the speed of light being independent of the speed of the source was something that Einstein came up with, as far as I know.

 

[Tendex]

The notion of the speed of light being independent of the speed of the source was something that Einstein came up with, as far as I know.

That's just a consequence of taking the finite constancy of light seriously as he did together with the relativity postulate that rejects unique privileged rest frames like the aether. Once it was empirically clear that the speed of light was not infinite it could either depend on the sources privileging some frame or else follow a relativity principle like the galilean but with a finite speed of light instead(Einstein way).

But in purity a galilean infinite speed of light didn't depend on the source either as it was always infinite, it just was obvious from Galileo and earlier that it wasn't infinite and the only satisfactory mathematical explanation available from the time of Maxwell and until Poincaré-Einstein-Minkowski time of this finiteness was a Newtonian preferred frame or aether.

 

[Herman Trivilino]

That's just a consequence of taking the finite constancy of light seriously as he did together with the relativity postulate that rejects unique privileged rest frames like the aether.

Einstein was careful to state his 2nd Postulate as an assertion that the speed of light is independent of the speed of the source. It's not a consequence in his theory, it's a postulate.

 

[Tendex]

Einstein was careful to state his 2nd Postulate as an assertion that the speed of light is independent of the speed of the source. It's not a consequence in his theory, it's a postulate.

What did you think "taking the finite constancy of light seriously " mean here?