Poincaré on clocks in motion

Scott A. Walter (1)

1 UL - Université de Lorraine

Recently-discovered manuscripts throw new light on Poincaré's discovery of the Lorentz group, and his ether-based interpretation of the Lorentz transformation. At first, Poincaré postulated longitudinal contraction of bodies in motion with respect to the ether, and ignored time deformation. In April, 1909, he acknowledged temporal deformation due to translation, obtaining thereby a theory of relativity more compatible with those of Einstein and Minkowski.

Mots clés: history of relativity; Henri Poincaré

Domaines: Histoire de la Physique [physics.hist-ph]; Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Scott A. Walter. Poincaré on clocks in motion. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 2014, 47 (1), pp.131-141. ⟨10.1016/j.shpsb.2014.01.003⟩. ⟨halshs-01234459⟩