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Chapter 1, A Brief History of Relativity

• In Chapter One, Hawking gives his audience an overview of Einstein's life. Because of Einstein's work on the special and general theories of relativity, he became world-famous.

• It was Einstein's articles written in 1905, on humanity's conception of space, time, and reality, that surged him to the top of the scientific community.
• For a long while, until the end of the 19th century, scientists thought ether stretched through space.

• Ether was considered the medium that generated waves of light and radio.

• The ether theory is no longer considered valid because it predicted that light was traveling at only one speed through the ether.
• Einstein argued against the ether theory in a 1905 paper, concluding that if one was not able to figure out if one was moving through space, there was no way to discuss or make any valid point with the ether theory...

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