special relativity

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The physical theory of space and time developed by Albert Einstein, based on the postulates that all the laws of physics are equally valid in all frames of reference moving at a uniform velocity and that the speed of light from a uniformly moving source is always the same, regardless of how fast or slow the source or its observer is moving. The theory has as consequences the relativistic mass increase of rapidly moving objects, the Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction, time dilatation, and the principle of mass-energy equivalence.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun physics A theory that (neglecting the effects of gravity) reconciles the principle of relativity with the observation that the speed of light is constant in all frames of reference.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a physical theory of relativity based on the assumption that the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant and the assumption that the laws of physics are invariant in all inertial systems