Special relativity (alternative formulations)
Hendrik Lorentz and Henri Poincaré developed their version of special relativity in a series of papers from about 1900 to 1905. They used Maxwell's equations and the principle of relativity to deduce a theory that is mathematically equivalent to the theory later developed by Einstein.
Lorentz ether theory
Taken together (along with a few other tacit assumptions such as isotropy and homogeneity of space), these two postulates lead uniquely to the mathematics of special relativity. Lorentz and Poincaré had also adopted these same principles, as necessary to achieve their final results, but didn't recognize that they were also "sufficient", and hence that they obviated all the other assumptions underlying Lorentz's initial derivations (many of which later turned out to be incorrect ). Therefore, special relativity very quickly gained wide acceptance among physicists, and the 19th century concept of a luminiferous ether was no longer considered useful.