Quote:Just as a point of info, Catty, it wasn't that he forgot, it's that he had no idea that he needed to. At that point in time, most people had no idea that light travelled at all -- and some were still postulating that sight was a radar-like phenomenon using undefined signals emitted from the eyes. And that period was still centuries away from having the sophistication needed to perform the experiments that would indicate that the speed of light was indpendent of the frame of reference, which is really the key piece of info needed to get to relativity from classical physics. It was the need to reconcile that outrageously counterintuitive datum (which was still demonstrably true) with Newtonian physics that led Einstein inevitably to relativity. But without being able to measure c? No way. Newton did a bang-up job with the data he could get, and remember -- until you get to wild extremes of speed, mass or whatever, Newtonian physics still works just fine. It may be superceded, but it's not broken.
Take Newton forinstance he completly forgot to take the speed of light into account so most of his calulations are of.
-- Bob
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