摘要：1905 was a miraculous year for Physics. This paper intends to take a look at what happened then. Its aim is to briefly present the gestation period of Special Relativity starting with a few strokes about the technological features of that time and giving also some details about EinsteinÕs thought mechanisms. Mainly, the paper will take into account the philosophical, theoretical and experimental antecedents of physics which had an influence on Einstein: Mach's philosophy, Lorentz's and PoincarŽ's works, Maxwell's electromagnetism, Faraday's electrical dynamo and Planck's cavity radiation. After analyzing those constituents I will suggest how the embryo of the theory was formed in Einstein's mind, and I will describe the most important moments that threw light upon that, emphasizing the fact that he didn't lose his extraordinary sureness in his intuition, in spite of the amazing implications of relativity theory. Finally, I will indicate that Einstein only needed usual low-velocity experimental data, in conjunction with the data coming from the thoughtexperiment. In fact, this paper is an effort to make clear the beauty of the trip towards Special Relativity, grounded on the history of physics of that time and the autobiography of EinsteinÕs intuitions.
