Quote:
Originally Posted by =X=
When Einstein postulated his theory of Relativity it was shot down. It took nearly 2 decades for it to be accepted.
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With respect, that is not the case.
Classical physics was in "crisis" in the late 19th century, with many recent discoveries, especially in the new field of electromagnetism, simply not fitting in with the accepted physical models of the time.
"Special relativity" was an inevitable outcome of work being done by a number of physicists at the time. If Einstein hadn't come up with the theory, Lorentz or Maxwell would surely have done so within a year or so. "Maxwell's Equations" - the three fundanental equations which define the behaviour of electromagnetic waves -
are essentially an expression of special relativity couched in slightly different terms.
It was simply one of those times when all the groundwork had been done to make a fundamental change in the outlook of science inevitable. The fact that Einstein was the one to come up with a formal expression of that new outlook, in the form of relativity, was pretty much irrelevent. Someone else would have done so if Einstein hadn't been around.