ATTRIBUTIONS AND MISATTRIBUTIONS AT THE ORIGINS OF SPECIAL RELATIVITY
ATTRIBUTIONS AND MISATTRIBUTIONS AT THE ORIGINS OF SPECIAL RELATIVITY

Author(s): Marco Mamone Capria, Maria Grazia Manini
Subject(s): History, History of ideas
Published by: Scientia Socialis, UAB
Keywords: Special relativity; Lorentz transformations; Electromagnetism; Fields vs. Potentials; Lorentz; Poincaré; Einstein; Minkowski
Summary/Abstract: Minkowski wrote that a basic mathematical result (the Lorentz invariance of Maxwell equations) for the newborn special theory of relativity was “the theorem of relativity by Lorentz”. We explain that this name is unwarranted, and that in fact among the founders of the theory it was Poincaré who came closest to proving it. It is argued that historians should be careful not to rely uncritically on the bits of historical reconstruction that for different purposes scientists insert in their technical papers.

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