George Francis FitzGerald
George Francis FitzGerald (born August 3, 1851 in Dublin , Ireland , † February 22, 1901 ibid) was an Irish physicist . He was the son of William FitzGerald, a professor of moral philosophy and later Anglican bishop , and the nephew of George Johnstone Stoney , who gave the electron its name.
Life
At the age of 16, George FitzGerald began his studies at Trinity College Dublin , where he became a Fellow in 1877 and finally a professor of natural and experimental philosophy.
FitzGerald carried out research in the field of electrodynamics and, based on Maxwell's equations , designed a device for generating electromagnetic waves in 1883 . He is far better known for his conjecture made in 1884 that all objects in motion shorten in the direction of their movement. This was an explanation for the result of the Michelson-Morley experiment of 1881 and 1887. FitzGerald published his thesis in Science in 1889 , a few years before Hendrik A. Lorentz (1892, 1895). This so-called Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction became an important part of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity . a. busy explaining this phenomenon.
It complemented Maxwell's work on electromagnetic light theory. The magnetic dipole is sometimes referred to as the Fitzgerald dipole . For Hertz vector is Fitzgeraldsche vector dual.
FitzGerald also took part in Otto Lilienthal's gliding flights and in March 1895 acquired a normal sailing device . He reported on his experiments with the Lilienthal glider in 1898 in the magazine "The Aeronautical Journal" .
In 1900 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in 1970 the lunar crater Fitzgerald was named after him.
Fonts
- Joseph Larmor (Editor): The Scientific Writings of the Late George Francis FitzGerald , Dublin 1902
literature
- Kirk T. McDonald: Fitzgerald's Calculation of the Radiation of an Oscillating Magnetic Dipole
- Werner Schwipps: Man flies - Lilienthal's flight attempts in historical recordings ; Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1988, ISBN 3-7637-5838-0 .
Web links
Fitzgerald's work on length contraction (1889):
- Millenium Trinity Monday Memorial Discourse by Professor JMD Coey ( Memento March 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
Remarks
- ↑ Fitzgerald was wrongly of the opinion that Lorentz had anticipated him because Science temporarily suspended its publication for financial reasons. Banesh Hoffmann Einstein's ideas , Spektrum Verlag 1997, p. 102.
- ↑ Schwipps, Man flies , p. 128
- ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed December 5, 2019 .
- ↑ George Francis FitzGerald in the IAU's Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature (WGPSN) / USGS
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | FitzGerald, George Francis |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Irish physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 3, 1851 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dublin |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 22, 1901 |
| Place of death | Dublin |