Scientific theory
In 1905, Albert Einstein published the principle of special relativity, which soon became a theory. Special relativity predicted the alignment of the Newtonian principle of Galilean invariance, also termed "Galilean relativity", with the electromagnetic field. By omitting from special relativity the luminiferous aether, Einstein stated that time dilation and length contraction measured in an object in relative motion is inertial—that is, the object exhibits constant velocity, which is speed with direction, when measured by its observer. He thereby duplicated the Lorentz transformation and the Lorentz contraction that had been hypothesized to resolve experimental riddles and inserted into electrodynamic theory as dynamical consequences of the aether's properties. An elegant theory, special relativity yielded its own consequences, such as the equivalence of mass and energy transforming into one another and the resolution of the paradox that an excitation of the electromagnetic field could be viewed in one reference frame as electricity, but in another as magnetism.
Special relativity
Einstein discerned two fundamental propositions that seemed to be the most assured, regardless of the exact validity of the (then) known laws of either mechanics or electrodynamics. These propositions were the constancy of the speed of light and the independence of physical laws (especially the constancy of the speed of light) from the choice of inertial system. In his initial presentation of special relativity in 1905 he expressed these postulates as: