Einstein's relativity paper reached the journal
On this day · 30 June 1905
On June 30, 1905, Annalen der Physik received the paper in which an unknown patent clerk redefined space and time.
On June 30, 1905, the German journal Annalen der Physik received a manuscript titled “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper” — “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.” Its author was a 26-year-old patent clerk in Bern named Albert Einstein, working largely outside the academic establishment.
The paper set out the theory of special relativity. Einstein began from two deceptively simple postulates: the laws of physics are the same for all observers moving at constant velocity, and the speed of light in a vacuum is constant for everyone, no matter how fast they move. From these he showed that time and length are not absolute but stretch and contract depending on relative motion.
The work overturned the Newtonian assumption of universal time and dispensed with the supposed light-carrying “ether.”
It arrived during Einstein’s “miracle year,” a single burst of papers that reshaped modern physics.
The journal published it that September, launching one of the most consequential ideas in science.
Sources & references
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