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Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (; 18 July 1853 – 4 February 1928) was a Dutch
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
who shared the 1902
Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...
with Pieter Zeeman for the discovery and theoretical explanation of the Zeeman effect. He also derived the
Lorentz transformation In physics, the Lorentz transformations are a six-parameter family of linear transformations from a coordinate frame in spacetime to another frame that moves at a constant velocity relative to the former. The respective inverse transformation i ...
underpinning
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
's
special theory of relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates: # The law ...
, as well as the
Lorentz force In physics (specifically in electromagnetism) the Lorentz force (or electromagnetic force) is the combination of electric and magnetic force on a point charge due to electromagnetic fields. A particle of charge moving with a velocity in an elect ...
, which describes the combined electric and magnetic forces acting on a charged particle in an electromagnetic field. Lorentz was also responsible for the
Lorentz oscillator model The Lorentz oscillator model describes the optical response of bound charges. The model is named after the Dutch physicist Hendrik Antoon Lorentz. It is a classical, phenomenological model for materials with characteristic resonance frequencies ...
, a classical model used to describe the anomalous dispersion observed in dielectric materials when the driving frequency of the electric field was near the resonant frequency, resulting in abnormal refractive indices. 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." He received many other honours and distinctions, including a term as chairman of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, the forerunner of UNESCO, between 1925 and 1928.


Biography


Early life

Hendrik Lorentz was born in
Arnhem Arnhem ( or ; german: Arnheim; South Guelderish: ''Èrnem'') is a city and municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands about 55 km south east of Utrecht. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland, located on both banks of ...
,
Gelderland Gelderland (), also known as Guelders () in English, is a province of the Netherlands, occupying the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Netherlands by land area, and second by ...
, 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. From 1866 to 1869, he attended the "'' Hogere Burgerschool''" in Arnhem, a new type of public high school recently established by
Johan Rudolph Thorbecke Johan Rudolph Thorbecke (14 January 1798 – 4 June 1872) was a Dutch liberal statesman, one of the most important Dutch politicians of the 19th century. Thorbecke is best known for heading the commission that drafted the revision of the Consti ...
. 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 A classical language is any language with an independent literary tradition and a large and ancient body of written literature. Classical languages are typically dead languages, or show a high degree of diglossia, as the spoken varieties of the ...
which were then required for admission to University. Lorentz studied physics and mathematics at
Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of L ...
, where he was strongly influenced by the teaching of astronomy professor
Frederik Kaiser Frederik Kaiser (Amsterdam, 10 June 1808 – Leiden, 28 July 1872) was a Dutch astronomer. He was director of the Leiden Observatory from 1838 until his death. He is credited with the advancement of Dutch astronomy through his scientific ...
; it was his influence that led him to become a physicist. After earning a
bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six y ...
, 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 Petrus Leonardus Rijke (11 July 1812 – 7 April 1899) was a Dutch physicist, and a professor in experimental physics at the University of Leiden. Rijke spent his scientific career exploring the physics of electricity, and is known for the Rijke ...
on a thesis entitled "'" (On the theory of reflection and refraction of light), in which he refined the electromagnetic theory of
James Clerk Maxwell James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and light ...
.


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 Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of L ...
. The position had initially been offered to Johan van der Waals, but he accepted a position at the
Universiteit van Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other b ...
. On 25 January 1878, Lorentz delivered his inaugural lecture on ''""'' (The molecular theories in physics). In 1881, he became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. 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 In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids—liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) and ...
to general relativity. His most important contributions were in the area of electromagnetism, the electron theory, and relativity. 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 In physics (specifically in electromagnetism) the Lorentz force (or electromagnetic force) is the combination of electric and magnetic force on a point charge due to electromagnetic fields. A particle of charge moving with a velocity in an elect ...
, the Lorentzian distribution, the
Lorentz oscillator model The Lorentz oscillator model describes the optical response of bound charges. The model is named after the Dutch physicist Hendrik Antoon Lorentz. It is a classical, phenomenological model for materials with characteristic resonance frequencies ...
and the
Lorentz transformation In physics, the Lorentz transformations are a six-parameter family of linear transformations from a coordinate frame in spacetime to another frame that moves at a constant velocity relative to the former. The respective inverse transformation i ...
.


Electrodynamics and relativity

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. 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 In astronomy, aberration (also referred to as astronomical aberration, stellar aberration, or velocity aberration) is a phenomenon which produces an apparent motion of celestial objects about their true positions, dependent on the velocity of t ...
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 (see
Einstein synchronisation Einstein synchronisation (or Poincaré–Einstein synchronisation) is a convention for synchronising clocks at different places by means of signal exchanges. This synchronisation method was used by telegraphers in the middle 19th century, but ...
and Relativity of simultaneity). In 1892, with the attempt to explain the
Michelson–Morley experiment The Michelson–Morley experiment was an attempt to detect the existence of the luminiferous aether, a supposed medium permeating space that was thought to be the carrier of light waves. The experiment was performed between April and July 1887 ...
, 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). In 1899 and again in 1904, Lorentz added
time dilation In physics and relativity, time dilation is the difference in the elapsed time as measured by two clocks. It is either due to a relative velocity between them ( special relativistic "kinetic" time dilation) or to a difference in gravitational ...
to his transformations and published what Poincaré in 1905 named
Lorentz transformations In physics, the Lorentz transformations are a six-parameter family of linear transformations from a coordinate frame in spacetime to another frame that moves at a constant velocity relative to the former. The respective inverse transformation i ...
. 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. 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

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 The ''annus mirabilis'' papers (from Latin '' annus mīrābilis'', "miracle year") are the four papers that Albert Einstein published in ''Annalen der Physik'' (''Annals of Physics''), a scientific journal, in 1905. These four papers were major c ...
", 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. The increase of mass was the first prediction of Lorentz and Einstein to be tested, but some experiments by
Kaufmann Kaufmann is a surname with many variants such as Kauffmann, Kaufman, and Kauffman. In German, the name means '' merchant''. It is the cognate of the English ''Chapman'' (which had a similar meaning in the Middle Ages, though it disappeared from ...
appeared to show a slightly different mass increase; this led Lorentz to the famous remark that he was "au bout de mon latin" ("at the end of my nowledge ofLatin" = at his wit's end) The confirmation of his prediction had to wait until 1908 and later (see
Kaufmann–Bucherer–Neumann experiments The Kaufmann–Bucherer–Neumann experiments measured the dependence of the inertial mass (or momentum) of an object on its velocity. The historical importance of this series of experiments performed by various physicists between 1901 and 1915 i ...
). Lorentz published a series of papers dealing with what he called "Einstein's principle of relativity". For instance, in 1909, 1910, *English Wikisource translation: The Principle of Relativity and its Application to some Special Physical Phenomena 1914. In his 1906 lectures published with additions in 1909 in the book "The theory of electrons" (updated in 1915), he spoke affirmatively of Einstein's theory: Though Lorentz still maintained that there is an (undetectable) aether in which resting clocks indicate the "true time": Lorentz also gave credit to Poincaré's contributions to relativity.


Lorentz and general relativity

Lorentz was one of few scientists who supported Einstein's search for general relativity from the beginning – he wrote several research papers and discussed with Einstein personally and by letter. For instance, he attempted to combine Einstein's formalism with Hamilton's principle (1915), and to reformulate it in a coordinate-free way (1916). Lorentz wrote in 1919:


Lorentz and quantum mechanics

Lorentz gave a series of lectures in the Fall of 1926 at
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teac ...
on the new quantum mechanics; in these he presented Erwin Schrödinger's wave mechanics.


Assessments

Einstein wrote of Lorentz: Poincaré (1902) said of Lorentz's theory of electrodynamics:
Paul Langevin Paul Langevin (; ; 23 January 1872 – 19 December 1946) was a French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. He was one of the founders of the ''Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes'', an ant ...
(1911) said of Lorentz: (translated by J. B. Sykes, 1973). Lorentz and
Emil Wiechert Emil Johann Wiechert (26 December 1861 – 19 March 1928) was a German physicist and geophysicist who made many contributions to both fields, including presenting the first verifiable model of a layered structure of the Earth and being among the ...
had an interesting correspondence on the topics of electromagnetism and the theory of relativity, and Lorentz explained his ideas in letters to Wiechert.(Arch. ex. hist. Sci, 1984). Lorentz was chairman of the first Solvay Conference held in Brussels in the autumn of 1911. Shortly after the conference, Poincaré wrote an essay on quantum physics which gives an indication of Lorentz's status at the time:


Change of priorities

In 1910, Lorentz decided to reorganize his life. His teaching and management duties at Leiden University were taking up too much of his time, leaving him little time for research. In 1912, he resigned from his chair of theoretical physics to become curator of the "Physics Cabinet" at Teylers Museum in Haarlem. He remained connected to Leiden University as an external professor, and his "Monday morning lectures" on new developments in theoretical physics soon became legendary. Lorentz initially asked Einstein to succeed him as professor of theoretical physics at Leiden. However, Einstein could not accept because he had just accepted a position at ETH Zurich. Einstein had no regrets in this matter, since the prospect of having to fill Lorentz's shoes made him shiver. Instead Lorentz appointed Paul Ehrenfest as his successor in the chair of theoretical physics at the Leiden University, who would found the Institute for Theoretical Physics which would become known as the Lorentz Institute.


Civil work

After World War I, Lorentz was one of the driving forces behind the founding of the "Wetenschappelijke Commissie van Advies en Onderzoek in het Belang van Volkswelvaart en Weerbaarheid", a committee which was to harness the scientific potential united in the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) for solving civil problems such as food shortage which had resulted from the war. Lorentz was appointed chair of the committee. However, despite the best efforts of many of the participants the committee would harvest little success. The only exception being that it ultimately resulted in the founding of TNO, the
Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (TNO; en, Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research) is an independent research organisation in the Netherlands that focuses on applied science. The organisat ...
. Lorentz was also asked by the Dutch government to chair a committee to calculate some of the effects of the proposed
Afsluitdijk The ''Afsluitdijk'' (; fry, Ofslútdyk; nds-nl, Ofsluutdiek; en, "Closure Dyke") is a major dam and causeway in the Netherlands. It was constructed between 1927 and 1932 and runs from Den Oever in North Holland province to the village of ...
(Enclosure Dam) flood control dam on water levels in the
Waddenzee The Wadden Sea ( nl, Waddenzee ; german: Wattenmeer; nds, Wattensee or ; da, Vadehavet; fy, Waadsee, longname=yes; frr, di Heef) is an intertidal zone in the southeastern part of the North Sea. It lies between the coast of northwestern cont ...
.
Hydraulic engineering Hydraulic engineering as a sub-discipline of civil engineering is concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water and sewage. One feature of these systems is the extensive use of gravity as the motive force to cause the mov ...
was mainly an empirical science at that time, but the disturbance of the tidal flow caused by the Afsluitdijk was so unprecedented that the empirical rules could not be trusted. Originally Lorentz was only supposed to have a coordinating role in the committee, but it quickly became apparent that Lorentz was the only physicist to have any fundamental traction on the problem. In the period 1918 till 1926, Lorentz invested a large portion of his time in the problem. Lorentz proposed to start from the basic
hydrodynamic In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids— liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) ...
equations of motion and solve the problem numerically. This was feasible for a " human computer", because of the quasi-one-dimensional nature of the water flow in the
Waddenzee The Wadden Sea ( nl, Waddenzee ; german: Wattenmeer; nds, Wattensee or ; da, Vadehavet; fy, Waadsee, longname=yes; frr, di Heef) is an intertidal zone in the southeastern part of the North Sea. It lies between the coast of northwestern cont ...
. The Afsluitdijk was completed in 1932, and the predictions of Lorentz and his committee turned out to be remarkably accurate. One of the two sets of locks in the Afsluitdijk was named after him.


Family life

In 1881, Lorentz married Aletta Catharina Kaiser. Her father was J.W. Kaiser, a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts. He was the Director of the museum which later became the well-known Rijksmuseum (National Gallery). He also was the designer of the first postage stamps of The Netherlands. There were two daughters, and one son from this marriage. Dr. Geertruida Luberta Lorentz, the eldest daughter, was a physicist. She married Professor
Wander Johannes de Haas Wander Johannes de Haas (2 March 1878 – 26 April 1960) was a Dutch physicist and mathematician. He is best known for the Shubnikov–de Haas effect, the De Haas–Van Alphen effect and the Einstein–de Haas effect. Personal life Wander de H ...
, who was the Director of the Cryogenic Laboratory at the University of Leiden.


Death

In January 1928, Lorentz became seriously ill, and died shortly after on 4 February. The respect in which he was held in the Netherlands is apparent from
Owen Willans Richardson Sir Owen Willans Richardson, FRS (26 April 1879 – 15 February 1959) was a British physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1928 for his work on thermionic emission, which led to Richardson's law. Biography Richardson was born in Dew ...
's description of his funeral: Unique 1928 film footage of the funeral procession with a lead carriage followed by ten mourners, followed by a carriage with the coffin, followed in turn by at least four more carriages, passing by a crowd at the
Grote Markt, Haarlem The Grote Markt is the central market square of Haarlem, Netherlands. According to the 1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica''; Buildings of interest * Frans Hals Museum - Hal *Grote Kerk, Haarlem The Grote Kerk or St.-Bavokerk is a Reformed Pr ...
, from the Zijlstraat to the Smedestraat, and then back again through the Grote Houtstraat towards the Barteljorisstraat, on the way to the "Algemene Begraafplaats" at the Kleverlaan (northern Haarlem cemetery), has been digitized on YouTube. Hendrik Lorentz Amongst others, the funeral was attended by Albert Einstein and Marie Curie.


Legacy

Lorentz is considered one of the prime representatives of the "Second Dutch Golden Age", a period of several decades surrounding 1900 in which the natural sciences flourished in the Netherlands. Richardson describes Lorentz as:
A man of remarkable intellectual powers. Although steeped in his own investigation of the moment, he always seemed to have in his immediate grasp its ramifications into every corner of the universe. The singular clearness of his writings provides a striking reflection of his wonderful powers in this respect. He possessed and successfully employed the mental vivacity which is necessary to follow the interplay of discussion, the insight which is required to extract those statements which illuminate the real difficulties, and the wisdom to lead the discussion among fruitful channels, and he did this so skillfully that the process was hardly perceptible.
M. J. Klein (1967) wrote of Lorentz's reputation in the 1920s:
For many years physicists had always been eager "to hear what Lorentz will say about it" when a new theory was advanced, and, even at seventy-two, he did not disappoint them.
In addition to the Nobel prize, Lorentz received a great many honours for his outstanding work. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1905. The Society awarded him their
Rumford Medal The Rumford Medal is an award bestowed by Britain's Royal Society every alternating year for "an outstandingly important recent discovery in the field of thermal or optical properties of matter made by a scientist working in Europe". First awar ...
in 1908 and their
Copley Medal The Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society, for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science". It alternates between the physical sciences or mathematics and the biological sciences. Given every year, the medal is t ...
in 1918. He was elected an Honorary Member of the Netherlands Chemical Society in 1912.Honorary members
– website of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society


See also

* List of things named after Hendrik Antoon Lorentz *
Lorentz oscillator model The Lorentz oscillator model describes the optical response of bound charges. The model is named after the Dutch physicist Hendrik Antoon Lorentz. It is a classical, phenomenological model for materials with characteristic resonance frequencies ...
* Lorentz covariance *
Modern searches for Lorentz violation Modern may refer to: History * Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosoph ...
*
Heaviside–Lorentz units Heaviside–Lorentz units (or Lorentz–Heaviside units) constitute a system of units (particularly electromagnetic units) within CGS, named for Hendrik Antoon Lorentz and Oliver Heaviside. They share with CGS-Gaussian units the property that t ...
*
Lorentz-violating electrodynamics Searches for Lorentz violation involving photons provide one possible test of relativity. Examples range from modern versions of the classic Michelson–Morley experiment that utilize highly stable electromagnetic resonant cavities to searches for ...
* Geertruida de Haas-Lorentz *
Lorentz (crater) Lorentz is a huge lunar impact crater that lies just beyond the northwest limb of the Moon, in a region that is brought into sight of the Earth during favorable librations. This formation is nearly as large as the Mare Nectaris on the near side ...
* Lorentz Medal *
Trouton–Noble experiment The Trouton–Noble experiment was an attempt to detect motion of the Earth through the luminiferous aether, and was conducted in 1901–1903 by Frederick Thomas Trouton and H. R. Noble. It was based on a suggestion by George FitzGerald t ...


References


Primary sources

* Many papers by Lorentz (mostly in English) are available for online viewin
in the Proceedings of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science, Amsterdam
* * ,
Vol. I online


Secondary sources

* * * Se
English translation
* : n.p.. The quotation is from the English translation () * :n.p.. The quotation in the article is from the English translation: ( :n.p.) * Sri Kantha, S. Einstein and Lorentz. ''Nature'', 13 July 1995; 376: 111. (Letter)


External links

* *



of the students of Lorentz. * * * * * * *
Movie of Lorentz's funeral
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lorentz, Hendrik Antoon 1853 births 1928 deaths 20th-century Dutch physicists Dutch Nobel laureates 19th-century Dutch physicists Leiden University alumni Leiden University faculty Nobel laureates in Physics Recipients of the Copley Medal People from Arnhem Relativity theorists Foreign Members of the Royal Society Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Corresponding Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1917–1925) Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Honorary Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Theoretical physicists Members of Teylers Tweede Genootschap Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh