Special relativity exerted another long-lasting effect on dynamics. Although initially it was credited with the "unification of mass and energy", it became evident that relativistic dynamics established a firm distinction between rest mass, which is an invariant (observer independent) property of a particle or system of particles, and the energy and momentum of a system. The latter two are separately conserved in all situations but not invariant with respect to different observers. The term mass in particle physics underwent a semantic change, and since the late 20th century it almost exclusively denotes the rest (or invariant) mass.