From my patchy understanding of relativity, the speed of light being same to all observers is the key ‘hypothesis’ that leads to other consequences like time dilation, relativity etc.
But how did Einstein come to this ‘hypothesis’? Was it just a moment of extraordinary inspiration or were there other ‘hints’ that lead to this? I mean Michelson Morley experiment ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley\_experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment) ) was well over a decade earlier. So how come nobody else thought of the idea of speed of light being a constant to everyone?
Follow up question: from this hypothesis, is the space-time continuum also an obvious conclusion? Or did it require another inspired genius moment?
(I use hypothesis in quotes to illustrate that it was indeed a hypothesis when proposed).
In: Physics
As I understand there were 2 theories that both seemed legit but couldn’t both be true and that was the basis for Einsteins work.
1. Maxwell stating that light always travels at the same speed.
2. Newton with his Laws of Motion. (For example, if a train goes 100 km/h and you throw a ball with 50 km/h in that train then the ball travels with 150 km/h for someone standing still outside of the train.)
If you put a lamp on that train then it’s light should be travelling with the speed of light according to 1 but it should be travelling at the speed of light + 50 km/h according to 2.
Einstein figured out this problem by stating that both can be true if time and space are different for both the train and the person watching outside of it.
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