Isaac Newton's world had operated in a fixed, rigid, "absolute" framework of space and time.
Yet discoveries about electromagnetism in the late nineteenth century created new and troubling
inconsistencies. In 1905, Einstein's name became synonymous with "genius" when his Special Theory of
Relativity challenged old concepts in physics. Hertz, Lorentz, Mach, Poincare, and others illustrated the
ideas that so captivated Albert Einstein and shook our conventional ideas about space and time.

The Science and Discovery series recreates one of history's most successful journeysfour thousand years
of scientific efforts to better understand and control the physical world. Science has often challenged and upset
conventional wisdom or accepted practices; this is a story of vested interests and independent thinkers,
experiments and theories, change and progress. Aristotle, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein,
and many others are featured.

College of Liberal Arts-Rochester Inst of Technology