Length contraction was postulated by George FitzGerald (1889) and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1892) to explain the negative outcome of the Michelson-Morley experiment and to rescue the hypothesis of the stationary aether (Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction hypothesis) [REF].
Eventually, Albert Einstein (1905) was the first[REF] to completely remove the ad hoc character from the contraction hypothesis, by demonstrating that this contraction did not require motion through a supposed aether, but could be explained using special relativity, which changed our notions of space, time, and simultaneity [REF].