Einstein's 1905 Derivation
First correct explanation
Albert Einstein’s 1905 relativity paper is the most famous work in the history of physics.
In it, Einstein derived relativistic transformation equations, instead of positing them like Woldemar Voigt, H.A. Lorentz, and Henri Poincaré.
Yet readers were confused by Einstein’s derivation. Even decades later, the top experts who analyzed it didn’t understand it either, such as G.H. Keswani, Karl Stiegler, Arthur I. Miller, Roberto Torretti, and John Stachel.
They mistakenly claimed that Einstein used four coordinate systems, that some were pseudo-Galilean, that his derivation involved variations in the speed of light, and that x' = x – vt, in Einstein’s derivation, was a transformation. Such claims were all confused and mistaken.
For years, Einstein’s first derivation puzzled me too.
And so, 99 years after the 1905 paper, I published the first correct explanation of Einstein’s original derivation, in American Journal of Physics. I also explained it more fully, in my book Kinematics: The Lost Origins of Einstein’s Relativity.
“Kinematic Subtleties in Einstein’s First Derivation of the Lorentz Transformations”
American Journal of Physics 72, No. 6 (June 2004), 790-798.
“Text and Equations: Elements of Einstein’s Kinematics”
Kinematics: The Lost Origins of Einstein’s Relativity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 291-361.
“Critical History: The Algebra of Motion”
Kinematics: The Lost Origins of Einstein’s Relativity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 362-418.
Kinematics: The Lost Origins of Einstein’s Relativity
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009 hardcover), xix + 464 pp. (483 pp.).
http://www.martinezwritings.com/m/Kinematics.html
Reviewed in: Choice 47, December 2009, p. 1; Contemporary Physics 52:3, 2011, p. 258, Physics in Perspective 12:2, June 2010, pp. 236-238; American Mathematical Society MathSciNet, 2012, p. 1; Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, 41:1, winter 2011, pp. 112-122; Isis, 101:3, September 2010, pp. 633-635; Metascience, 21:1 March 2012, pp. 131-134; Science News, 176:5, August 2009, p. 30. Other Academic Praise: The Best Writing on Mathematics (Princeton University Press 2011); Historia Mathematica 38, 2011, p. 575; YBP Library Services, 2010, pp. 1-2; SciTech Book News, August 2009, p. 1; ShelfLife@Texas, October 2009, p. 1; Zentralblatt MATH (Germany), 2010, p. 1.
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BIO
Alberto Martinez is originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico. As a professor at UT Austin, he investigates the history of science, especially Einstein and relativity theory, history of math, historical myths, and Giordano Bruno and Galileo. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
He also researches myths in political news media, The Eyes of Texas, and episodes in the history of money and corruption.
Now, he's finishing writing a novel about Albert Einstein.