"By laying down the relativity postulate from the outset, sufficient means have been created for deducing henceforth the complete series of Laws of Mechanics from the principle of conservation of energy (and statements concerning the form of the energy) alone." (Hermann Minkowski, "The Fundamental Equations for Electromagnetic Processes in Moving Bodies", 1907)
"The most important result of a general character to which the special theory has led is concerned with the conception of mass. Before the advent of relativity, physics recognized two conservation laws of fundamental importance, namely, the law of conservation of energy and the law of the conservation of mass; these two fundamental laws appeared to be quite independent of each other. By means of the theory of relativity they have been united into one law." (Albert Einstein, 1920)
"The discovery of Minkowski […] is to be found […] in the fact of his recognition that the four-dimensional space-time continuum of the theory of relativity, in its most essential formal properties, shows a pronounced relationship to the three-dimensional continuum of Euclidean geometrical space. In order to give due prominence to this relationship, however, we must replace the usual time co-ordinate t by an imaginary magnitude, √-1*ct, proportional to it. Under these conditions, the natural laws satisfying the demands of the (special) theory of relativity assume mathematical forms, in which the time co-ordinate plays exactly the same role as the three space-coordinates. Formally, these four co-ordinates correspond exactly to the three space co-ordinates in Euclidean geometry." (Albert Einstein,"Relativity: The Special and General Theory", 1920)
"The relativity theory of physics reduces everything to relations; that is to say, it is structure, not material, which counts. The structure cannot be built up without material; but the nature of the material is of no importance." (Arthur S Eddington, "Space, Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Relativity Theory", 1920)
"There is something attractive in presenting the evolution of a sequence of ideas in as brief a form as possible, and yet with a completeness suffi cient to preserve throughout the continuity of development. We shall endeavor to do this for the Theory of Relativity, and to show that the whole ascent is composed of small, almost self-evident steps of thought." (Albert Einstein, "A Brief Outline of the Development of the Theory of Relativity Nature Vol. 106 (2677) 1921)
"Einstein's theory of relativity has advanced our ideas of the structure of the cosmos a step further. It is as if a wall which separated us from Truth has collapsed. Wider expanses and greater depths are now exposed to the searching eye of knowledge, regions of which we had not even a presentiment. It has brought us much nearer to grasping the plan that underlies all physical happening." (Hermann Weyl, "Space - Time - Matter (1922)
"In the realm of physics it is perhaps only the theory of relativity which has made it quite clear that the two essences, space and time, entering into our intuition, have no place in the world constructed by mathematical physics. Colours are thus 'really' not even æther-vibrations, but merely a series of values of mathematical functions in which occur four independent parameters corresponding to the three dimensions of space, and the one of time." (Hermann Weyl, "Space, Time, Matter", 1922)
"The numerical side of the theory of relativity is derived from the failure of all attempts to detect the relative motion of matter and ether." (Herbert Dingle, "Relativity for All", 1922)
"Results of measurements are the subject-matter of physics; and the moral of the theory of relativity is that we can only comprehend what the physical quantities stand for if we first comprehend what they are." (Arthur S Eddington, "The Mathematical Theory of Relativity", 1923)
"By means of a revision of the concept of simultaneity in a shapable form I arrived at the special relativity theory.” (Albert Einstein, 1924)
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