Question

Why do you think the development of Newtonian mechanics preceded the more refined relativistic mechanics by so many years?

Short answer

Newtonian mechanics is an approximation to the relativistic mechanics in the limit of low speed, which has been the case in our everyday life for many years until the increasingly developed technology allowed for producing appreciably high speeds and thus measurable relativistic effects.

Step-by-step solution

Concept of the Newtonian mechanics

The reason is that the everyday-life speeds are much lower than the speed of light; It is not until recently when the developed technology allowed for appreciably high speeds (almost reaching the speed of light). We can see how for a small speed u the ratio$u/c~0$ and the Lorentz factor becomes $\gamma =1/\sqrt{1-u^2/c^2}~1$; all the relativistic laws of mechanics then reduce to their classical counterparts. Newtonian Mechanics is the approximation of relativistic mechanics in the limit of low speed, and for more than 250 years we have been living within this limit due to the limited speeds in our everyday life. It is not until the recent advancement of technology gave us the capability of producing appreciable speeds (compared to the speed of light), for which the relativistic effects became clear (measurable).