While teaching special relativity, Newton’s first law is usually assumed and then superimposed on the first postulate via the introduction of “inertial reference frames.” By contrast, taking Einstein’s earliest and simplest statement of the postulates of relativity to be fundamentally true, it is possible to show that Newton’s formulation of the law of inertia follows as a consequence.
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© 2000 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2000
American Association of Physics Teachers
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