Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (/ˈlɒrənts/; 18 July 1853 – 4 February 1928) was a Dutch physicist who shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pieter Zeeman for the discovery and theoretical explanation of the Zeeman effect. He also derived the Lorentz transformation underpinning Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, as well as the Lorentz force, which describes the combined electric and magnetic forces acting on a charged particle in an electromagnetic field.

According to the biography published by the Nobel Foundation, "It may well be said that Lorentz was regarded by all theoretical physicists as the world's leading spirit, who completed what was left unfinished by his predecessors and prepared the ground for the fruitful reception of the new ideas based on the quantum theory."[2] He received many other honours and distinctions, including a term as chairman of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation,[3] the forerunner of UNESCO, between 1925 and 1928.

Biography

Early life

Hendrik Lorentz was born in Arnhem, Gelderland, Netherlands, the son of Gerrit Frederik Lorentz (1822–1893), a well-off horticulturist, and Geertruida van Ginkel (1826–1861). In 1862, after his mother's death, his father married Luberta Hupkes. Despite being raised as a Protestant, he was a freethinker in religious matters.[B 1] From 1866 to 1869, he attended the "Hogere Burgerschool" in Arnhem, a new type of public high school recently established by Johan Rudolph Thorbecke. His results in school were exemplary; not only did he excel in the physical sciences and mathematics, but also in English, French, and German. In 1870, he passed the exams in classical languages which were then required for admission to University.[B 2]

Lorentz studied physics and mathematics at Leiden University, where he was strongly influenced by the teaching of astronomy professor Frederik Kaiser; it was his influence that led him to become a physicist. After earning a bachelor's degree, he returned to Arnhem in 1871 to teach night school classes in mathematics, but he continued his studies in Leiden in addition to his teaching position. In 1875, Lorentz earned a doctoral degree under Pieter Rijke on a thesis entitled "Over de theorie der terugkaatsing en breking van het licht" (On the theory of reflection and refraction of light), in which he refined the electromagnetic theory of James Clerk Maxwell.[B 2][4]

Career

Professor in Leiden

On 17 November 1877, only 24 years of age, Lorentz was appointed to the newly established chair in theoretical physics at the University of Leiden. The position had initially been offered to Johan van der Waals, but he accepted a position at the Universiteit van Amsterdam.[B 2] On 25 January 1878, Lorentz delivered his inaugural lecture on "De Situs Judi Bola Resmi moleculaire theoriën in de natuurkunde" (The molecular theories in physics). In 1881, he became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[5]

During the first twenty years in Leiden, Lorentz was primarily interested in the electromagnetic theory of electricity, magnetism, and light. After that, he extended his research to a much wider area while still focusing on theoretical physics. Lorentz made significant contributions to fields ranging from hydrodynamics to general relativity. His most important contributions were in the area of electromagnetism, the electron theory, and relativity.[B 2]

Lorentz theorized that atoms might consist of charged particles and suggested that the oscillations of these charged particles were the source of light. When a colleague and former student of Lorentz's, Pieter Zeeman, discovered the Zeeman effect in 1896, Lorentz supplied its theoretical interpretation. The experimental and theoretical work was honored with the Nobel prize in physics in 1902. Lorentz' name is now associated with the Lorentz–Lorenz equation, the Lorentz force, the Lorentzian distribution, and the Lorentz transformation.

Electrodynamics and relativity

Main articles: Lorentz ether theory, History of special relativity, History of Lorentz transformations § Lorentz1, and History of Lorentz transformations § Lorentz2 In 1892 and 1895, Lorentz worked on describing electromagnetic phenomena (the propagation of light) in reference frames that move relative to the postulated luminiferous aether.[6][7] He discovered that the transition from one to another reference frame could be simplified by using a new time variable that he called local time and which depended on universal time and the location under consideration. Although Lorentz did not give a detailed interpretation of the physical significance of local time, with it, he could explain the aberration of light and the result of the Fizeau experiment. In 1900 and 1904, Henri Poincaré called local time Lorentz's "most ingenious idea" and illustrated it by showing that clocks in moving frames are synchronized by exchanging light signals that are assumed to travel at the same speed against and with the motion of the frame[8][9] (see Einstein synchronisation and Relativity of simultaneity). In 1892, with the attempt to explain the Michelson–Morley experiment, Lorentz also proposed that moving bodies contract in the direction of motion (see length contraction; George FitzGerald had already arrived at this conclusion in 1889).[10]

In 1899 and again in 1904, Lorentz added time dilation to his transformations and published what Poincaré in 1905 named Lorentz transformations. Articles about Electromagnetism Solenoid ElectricityMagnetismHistoryTextbooks Electrostatics Magnetostatics Electrodynamics Electrical network Covariant formulation Scientists AmpèreBiotCoulombDavyEinsteinFaradayFizeauGaussHeavisideHenryHertzHopkinsonJefimenkoJouleLenzLiénardLorentzMaxwellNeumannØrstedOhmPoyntingRitchieSavartSingerSteinmetzTeslaThomsonVoltaWeberWiechertPoisson vte It was apparently unknown to Lorentz that Joseph Larmor had used identical transformations to describe orbiting electrons in 1897. Larmor's and Lorentz's equations look somewhat dissimilar, but they are algebraically equivalent to those presented by Poincaré and Einstein in 1905.[B 3] Lorentz's 1904 paper includes the covariant formulation of electrodynamics, in which electrodynamic phenomena in different reference frames are described by identical equations with well defined transformation properties. The paper clearly recognizes the significance of this formulation, namely that the outcomes of electrodynamic experiments do not depend on the relative motion of the reference frame. The 1904 paper includes a detailed discussion of the increase of the inertial mass of rapidly moving objects in a useless attempt to make momentum look exactly like Newtonian momentum; it was also an attempt to explain the length contraction as the accumulation of "stuff" onto mass making it slow and contract.

Lorentz and special relativity

Albert Einstein and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, photographed by Ehrenfest in front of his home in Leiden in 1921.

Lorentz (left) at the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations, here with Albert Einstein.

His published university lectures in theoretical physics. Part 1. Stralingstheorie (1910-1911, Radiation theory) in Dutch, edited by his student A. D. Fokker, 1919. In 1905, Einstein would use many of the concepts, mathematical tools and results Lorentz discussed to write his paper entitled "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies",[13] known today as the special theory of relativity. Because Lorentz laid the fundamentals for the work by Einstein, this theory was originally called the Lorentz–Einstein theory.

In 1906, Lorentz's electron theory received a full-fledged treatment in his lectures at Columbia University, published under the title The Theory of Electrons.