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.
Theory of relativity
The Ives–Stilwell experiment was carried out by Herbert Ives and G.R. Stilwell first in 1938 and with better accuracy in 1941. It was designed to test the transverse Doppler effect – the redshift of light from a moving source in a direction perpendicular to its velocity—which had been predicted by Einstein in 1905. The strategy was to compare observed Doppler shifts with what was predicted by classical theory, and look for a Lorentz factor correction. Such a correction was observed, from which was concluded that the frequency of a moving atomic clock is altered according to special relativity.