Ed Gerck

24 Common Misconceptions of Mass and Energy in Special Relativity Ed Gerck

Different formulations of special relativity (SR) exist today, of what is, more and more, seen in all sciences, fitting the original name of a "theory of invariants". We present here a number of misconceptions still persistently affecting the Minkowski formulation of SR, which is the formulation tested and preferred in physics. Other formulations of SR may change, and many had misconceptions, such as "relativistic mass", whereas many were even considered right at their time, but a consistent picture continues to emerge using spacetime, as Minkowski proposed. Generally, also, people who do not understand any "big difference" between Einstein SR and Minkowski SR, do not understand either. This intends to be solved here, as a meta-study spanning many results and not of any single author.