Woldemar Voigt

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Woldemar Voigt

Woldemar Voigt [ ˈvɔldəmar ˈfoːkt ] (born September 2, 1850 in Leipzig , † December 13, 1919 in Göttingen ) was a German physicist . He taught theoretical physics at the Georg August University in Göttingen.

Life

Voigt studied at the humanistic Thomas School in Leipzig until 1867 . He was an enthusiastic musician, conducted Bach concerts and also published musicological treatises. Voigt studied mathematics and physics at the University of Leipzig from 10.1867 to the summer of 1871 . Here he became a member of the Leipzig University Choir of St. Pauli (now the German Choir ) in the winter of 1868/69 .

At the age of 20 he took part in the Franco-German War of 1870/71 and was promoted to reserve officer in 1870 . He served as second lieutenant in the reserve in the Rifle (Fus.) Regiment "Prince Georg" (Royal Saxon) No. 108 and (from 1880) as a premier lieutenant in the Landwehr infantry in Dresden.

From 1871 to March 1874 he studied at the Albertus University in Königsberg , among others with Franz Ernst Neumann , the founder of theoretical physics in Germany. In 1874 he received his doctorate in Königsberg on the elastic behavior of rock salt. Afterwards he was briefly an assistant teacher at the Nikolaischule in Leipzig.

From September 1875 to 1883 he worked as an associate professor for physics at the Albertus University in Königsberg. In August 1883 he became a full professor for theoretical physics at the Philosophical Faculty of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics there, which had previously been newly founded. He was appointed rector of Göttingen University twice .

His most famous students were Paul Drude (1863–1906), Friedrich Pockels (1865–1913), Walter Ritz (1878–1909) and Alfonso Sella (1865–1907).

He was in lively exchange with the most important scientists of his time such as Antoine Henri Becquerel , Pietro Blasena , Aimé Cotton , Pierre Curie , Hermann von Helmholtz , Heinrich Hertz , William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin , Gustav Robert Kirchhoff , Nagaoka Hantarō , Eduard Riecke , Augusto Righi , Hermann Amandus Schwarz , Arnold Sommerfeld and Wilhelm Eduard Weber .

Voigt's estate is stored in the university archive of the University of Göttingen and contains a treatise on the transformation of the differential equations of motion.

The physicist Erich Mollwo was his grandson.

Scientific work

In 1908, Woldemar Voigt presented a comprehensive theory of magneto-optics in the context of classical electrodynamics with his book "Magneto- und Elektrooptik" . He is the discoverer of the Voigt effect (also called magnetic linear dichroism ). In 1910 he wrote the “Textbook of Crystal Physics”, one of the fundamental works of crystallography, and in particular for the piezoelectric effect . The term " tensor " was first used by him. The Voigt notation used in crystallography goes back to him , a practical notation for symmetrical tensors.

A Voigt profile is the convolution of a Gaussian curve with a Lorentz curve .

From 1878 Voigt worked on the fundamentals and on the expansion of theoretical optics, which until then had been largely influenced by Fresnel. In the year of his admission to the Göttingen Society of Sciences , 1883, he tried to consistently develop a vacuum light theory on the basis of an elastic light ether. Later he largely gave up mechanical models and tried to develop a phenomenological theory. Its final form is contained in Volume II of his “Compendium of Theoretical Physics”.

From around 1886 Voigt worked on the theory of the optics of moving bodies, a then current research area in the run-up to the modern theory of relativity , in which many physicists tried to prove movements against the " ether ". He was the first to derive transformation equations from the type of Lorentz transformation , the Voigt transformations, and demonstrated the invariance of the wave equation under this transformation (see history of the Lorentz transformation # Voigt (1887) ). His starting point was a partial differential equation for transverse waves and a general form of the Galileo transformation . Voigt's transformation differs from the usual Lorentz transformation by a factor of scale. As Henri Poincaré and Albert Einstein in particular showed in 1905 , only the Lorentz transformation is symmetrical and fulfills the principle of relativity .

As HA Lorentz pointed out in a footnote on page 198 of his book "Theory of Electrons", Voigt anticipated the Lorentz transformation . It is also known that Voigt corresponded with Lorentz in 1887 and 1888 because of the Michelson experiment. However, Lorentz stated that he had not known Voigt's work from 1887 before he wrote his own work on it. Before the advent of the modern theory of relativity, Voigt's work was cited in the important journal Annalen der Physik in 1903 in an article on Doppler principle . It is uncertain whether Larmor was already familiar with the Voigt transformation. Of the creators of the modern theory of relativity, Voigt's pioneering work is only mentioned by Hermann Minkowski (for example in space and time ) besides Lorentz .

In 1887 and 1888 Voigt presented an extensive theory of light for moving media , which was published in two versions. On p. 235 of the first publication, he initially judged that the Michelson-Morley experiment “must” necessarily produce a negative result, regardless of whether the light ether was carried by the earth or not. In a footnote on p. 390 of the second publication, however, Voigt revised this statement and wrote: “There it is, however, still presupposed that the aether does not participate in the movement of the earth, which according to the latest observations by H. Michelson does not seem to be correct . The doubts that I previously had against such an interpretation of Mr. Michelson's observations can not be upheld as being erroneous to Mr. HA Loren (t) z's objections by letter ”.

Awards and memberships

Other honorary doctorates: Glasgow, Cambridge, Manchester.

Fonts (selection)

  • Elementary mechanics as an introduction to the study of theoretical physics. 1st edition Leipzig 1889 ( archive.org ), 2nd revised. Edition Leipzig 1901. Reprint of the 2nd edition: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2008, ISBN 978-3-8364-3900-8 .
  • About the internal friction of solid bodies, especially the crystals Göttingen 1890
  • Compendium of theoretical physics in two volumes . 1st vol .: Mechanics of rigid and non-rigid bodies, thermodynamics. Leipzig, 1895 ( archive.org ). Volume 2: Electricity and Magnetism, Optics . Leipzig 1896 ( archive.org ).
  • Elements of crystal physics - The fundamental physical properties of crystals in an elementary representation . Leipzig 1898. Reprint: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2008, ISBN 978-3-8364-3899-5 .
  • Thermodynamics . II. Volume. Leipzig 1904 ( archive.org ).
  • Magneto and electro optics. Leipzig 1908.
  • Crystal Physics Textbook. Leipzig 1910 ( digitized version ).
  • Souvenir sheets from the Franco-German war of 1879/71 . Goettingen 1914.
  • The church cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach. A guide in their studies and an advisor in their performance. Stuttgart 1911
  • Physical research and teaching in Germany over the past hundred years. Speech on behalf of the Georg-August-Universität at the university's annual celebration on June 5, 1912, Göttingen 1912 ( digitized version ).
  • Publications by Voigt on works by JS Bach and others

See also

literature

  • Karl Försterling : Woldemar Voigt on the hundredth birthday. In: Die Naturwissenschaften 38, No. 10, 1951, pp. 217–221.
  • Stefan L. Wolff: Woldemar Voigt (1850–1919) and Peter Zeeman (1865–1945) - a scientific friendship. In: D. Hoffmann, F. Bevilaqua, R. Steuwer (Eds.): The Emergence of Modern Physics: Proceedings of a Conference Commemorating a Century of Physics. Berlin, 22.-24. March 1995; Pavia (Univ. Degli Studi) 1996, pp. 169-177.
  • Stefan L. Wolff: Woldemar Voigt (1850–1919) and his studies of crystals. In: Bernhard Fritscher, Fergus Henderson (Ed.): Toward a History of Mineralogy, Petrology, and Geochemistry, Proceedings of the International Symposium on the History of Mineralogy, Petrology, and Geochemistry. Munich, 8.-9. March 1996 (Institute for the History of Natural Sciences) 1998, pp. 269–280 ( Algorismus Heft 23).
  • Stefan L. Wolff: Physicist in the "War of the Spirits" . Ed .: Munich Center for the History of Science and Technology. 2001 ( PDF ).
  • Stefan L. Wolff: Voigt, Woldemar In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB), Volume 27, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2020, pp. 69–70.

Web links

Wikisource: Woldemar Voigt  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Richard Sachse , Karl Ramshorn, Reinhart Herz: The teachers of the Thomasschule in Leipzig 1832-1912. The high school graduates of the Thomas School in Leipzig 1845–1912 . BG Teubner Verlag, Leipzig 1912, p. 46.
  2. ↑ Complete directory of the Paulines from summer 1822 to summer 1938, Leipzig 1938, page 47
  3. ↑ Woldemar Voigt: Transformation of the differential equations of motion. Göttingen University Archives (inventory signature: SUB.Gött.Cod.Ms.W.Voigt7. )
  4. ^ Woldemar Voigt: Magneto- and electro-optics. Leipzig 1908.
  5. ↑ cf. also: Woldemar Voigt: electro-optics. In: L. Graetz (Ed.): Handbook of Electricity and Magnetism, Vol. I, 1914.
  6. ^ Woldemar Voigt: Textbook of crystal physics. Leipzig 1910.
  7. ↑ Woldemar Voigt: Phenomenological and atomistic approach. In: Paul Hinneberg (ed.): The culture of the present 3rd part, 3rd section, 1st volume: Physics , Berlin / Leipzig 1915, pp. 714–731.
  8. ↑ Woldemar Voigt: Compendium of theoretical physics , Vol. I: Mechanics and non-rigid bodies, thermal theory , Vol. II: Electricity and Magnetism, Optics , Leipzig 1895–1896.
  9. ^ In the Handbook of Physics , Volume 2, Section 1, Breslau 1894, pp. 657–674. Voigt's optical theory is compared with other theories.
  10. ↑ Woldemar Voigt: About the Doppler principle . In: News from the Royal. Society of Sciences and the Georg August University in Göttingen . No. 8 , 1887, p. 41-51 . ; reprinted with additional Voigt comments in Woldemar Voigt: About the Doppler principle . In: Physikalische Zeitschrift . tape XVI , 1915, p. 381-396 .
  11. ↑ Pais, Abraham: "The Lord God is refined ...": Albert Einstein, a scientific biography . Spectrum, Heidelberg 1982/2000, ISBN 3-8274-0529-7 .
  12. ↑ A derivation method possibly used by Voigt is contained in section 1.4 The Relativity of Light of the treatise Reflections on Relativity on the MathPages website (where the scale factor was used instead ): “In order to make the transformation formula for agree with the Galilean transformation, Voigt chose , so he did not actually arrive at the Lorentz transformation, but nevertheless he had shown roughly how the wave equation could actually be relativistic - just like the dynamic behavior of inertial particles - provided we are willing to consider a transformation of the space and time coordinates that differs from the Galilean transformation. "
  13. ↑ Miller (1981): 114-115
  14. ^ Hendrik Antoon Lorentz : Theory of Electrons. Leipzig 1909.
  15. ↑ In his book Theory of Electrons HA Lorentz writes in the footnote on p. 198: "1) In a paper" About the Doppler principle ", published in 1887 (Gött. Nachrichten, p. 41) and which to my regret has escaped my notice all these years, Voigt has applied to equations of the form (6) (§ 3 of this book) [namely ] a transformation equivalent to the formulas (287) and (288) [namely the Lorentz transformation with a scale factor , also ]. The idea of ​​the transformations used above (and in § 44) might therefore have been borrowed from Voigt and the proof that it does not alter the form of the equations for the free ether is contained in his paper. "
  16. ^ The Lorentz-Voigt correspondence from 1887/88 is stored in the archive of the library of the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
  17. ↑ Emil Kohl: About an integral of the equations for wave motion, which corresponds to Doppler principle. In: Annals of Physics . Volume 11, No. 5, 1903, pp. 96-113 ( digitized on Gallica ).
  18. ^ Charles Kittel : Larmor and the Prehistory of the Lorentz Transformation. In: American Journal of Physics 42, 1971, pp. 726-729.
  19. ↑ Woldemar Voigt: Theory of light for moving media . In: News from the Royal. Society of Sciences and the Georg August University in Göttingen . No. 8 , 1887, p. 177-238 ( digitized version ).
  20. ↑ Woldemar Voigt: Theory of light for moving media . In: Annals of Physics and Chemistry . tape 35 , no. 11 , 1888, p. 370-396 , doi : 10.1002 / andp.18882711011 .
  21. ↑ Woldemar Voigt: Theory of light for moving media . In: Annals of Physics and Chemistry . tape 35 , no. 13 , 1888, p. 524-551 , doi : 10.1002 / andp.18882711111 .
  22. ^ Albert A. Michelson & Edward W. Morley : On the relative motion of the Earth and the luminiferous ether . In: American Journal of Science . tape 34 , no. 3 , p. 333-345 .
  23. ^ Member entry of Woldemar Voigt at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 18, 2016.
  24. ↑ Family records
personal data
SURNAME Voigt, Woldemar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist
DATE OF BIRTH September 2, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH December 13, 1919
Place of death Goettingen