Walther Heinrich Wilhelm Ritz (22 February 1878 – 7 July 1909) was a Swiss theoretical
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 ...
. He is most famous for his work with
Johannes Rydberg
Johannes (Janne) Robert Rydberg (; 8 November 1854 – 28 December 1919) was a Swedish physicist mainly known for devising the Rydberg formula, in 1888, which is used to describe the wavelengths of photons (of visible light and other electrom ...
on the
Rydberg–Ritz combination principle. Ritz is also known for the variational method named after him, the
Ritz method
The Ritz method is a direct method to find an approximate solution for boundary value problems. The method is named after Walther Ritz, and is also commonly called the Rayleigh–Ritz method and the Ritz-Galerkin method.
In quantum mechanics, ...
.
Life
Walter Ritz's father Raphael Ritz was born in
Valais
Valais ( , , ; frp, Valês; german: Wallis ), more formally the Canton of Valais,; german: Kanton Wallis; in other official Swiss languages outside Valais: it, (Canton) Vallese ; rm, (Chantun) Vallais. is one of the cantons of Switzerland, 26 ...
and was a well-known painter. His mother, born Nördlinger, was the daughter of an engineer from
Tübingen
Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in three ...
. Ritz was a particularly gifted student and attended the municipal lyceum in
Sion
Sion may refer to
* an alternative transliteration of Zion
People
* Sion (name) or Siôn, a Welsh and other given name and surname, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name
* Shion or Sion, a Japanese given name
Pl ...
. In 1897, he entered the polytechnic school in
Zurich, where he studied engineering. Soon, he found out that he could not live with the approximations and compromises associated with engineering, and so he switched to the more mathematically accurate physical sciences.
In 1900, Ritz contracted
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
, possibly also
pleurisy
Pleurisy, also known as pleuritis, is inflammation of the membranes that surround the lungs and line the chest cavity ( pleurae). This can result in a sharp chest pain while breathing. Occasionally the pain may be a constant dull ache. Other sy ...
, which he later died from. In 1901 he moved to
Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911.
General information
The ori ...
for health reasons. There he was influenced by
Woldemar Voigt
Woldemar Voigt (; 2 September 1850 – 13 December 1919) was a German physicist, who taught at the Georg August University of Göttingen. Voigt eventually went on to head the Mathematical Physics Department at Göttingen and was succeeded in ...
and
David Hilbert. Ritz wrote a dissertation on spectral lines of atoms and received his doctorate with summa cum laude. The theme later led to the Ritz combination principle and in 1913 to the atomic model of
Ernest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics.
''Encyclopædia Britannica'' considers him to be the greatest ...
and
Niels Bohr
Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. B ...
.
In the spring of 1903, he heard lectures by
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (; 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 Lorent ...
in Leiden on electrodynamic problems and his new electron theory. In June 1903 he was in
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...
at the Heinrich Kayser Institute, where he found in potash a spectral line that he had predicted in his dissertation. In November 1903, he was in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
at the
Ecole Normale Supérieure. There he worked on infrared photo plates.
In July 1904 his illness worsened and he moved back to Zurich. The disease prevented him from publishing further scientific publications until 1906. In September 1907 he moved to Tübingen, the place of origin of his mother, and in 1908 again to Göttingen, where he became a private lecturer at the university. There he published his work Recherches critiques sur l'Electrodynamique Générale, see below.
As a student, friend or colleague, Ritz had contacts with many contemporary scholars such as Hilbert,
Andreas Heinrich Voigt,
Hermann Minkowski, Lorentz,
Aimé Cotton
Aimé Auguste Cotton (9 October 1869 – 16 April 1951) was a French physicist known for his studies of the interaction of light with chiral molecules. In the absorption bands of these molecules, he discovered large values of optical rotator ...
,
Friedrich Paschen
Louis Carl Heinrich Friedrich Paschen (22 January 1865 - 25 February 1947), was a German physicist, known for his work on electrical discharges. He is also known for the Paschen series, a series of hydrogen spectral lines in the infrared region t ...
,
Henri Poincaré and
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 ...
. He was a fellow student of Einstein in Zurich, while he studied there. Ritz was an opponent of Einstein's
theory of relativity
The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phenomena in ...
.
Ritz died in Göttingen and was buried in the Nordheim cemetery in Zurich. The family tomb was lifted on 15 November 1999. His tombstone is in section 17 with the grave number 84457.
Works
Criticism of Maxwell–Lorentz electromagnetic theory
Not so well known is the fact that in 1908 Ritz produced a lengthy criticism
[Ritz, Walter (1908), "Recherches critiques sur l'Électrodynamique Générale", ''Annales de Chimie et de Physique'' 13: 145–275, Page 172.] of
Maxwell–Lorentz electromagnetic theory, in which he contended that the theory's connection with the ''luminescent ether'' (see
Lorentz ether theory
What is now often called Lorentz ether theory (LET) has its roots in Hendrik Lorentz's "theory of electrons", which was the final point in the development of the classical aether theories at the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th cen ...
) made it "essentially inappropriate to express the comprehensive laws for the propagation of electrodynamic actions."
Ritz pointed out seven problems with Maxwell–Lorentz electromagnetic field equations:
* Electric and magnetic forces really express relations about space and time and should be replaced with non-instantaneous elementary actions.
* Advanced potentials don't exist (and their erroneous use led to the
Rayleigh–Jeans ultraviolet catastrophe).
* Localization of energy in the ether is vague.
* It is impossible to reduce gravity to the same notions.
* The unacceptable inequality of action and reaction is brought about by the concept of absolute motion with respect to the ether.
* Apparent relativistic mass increase is amenable to different interpretations.
* The use of absolute coordinates, if independent of all motions of matter, requires throwing away the time honored use of
Galilean relativity
Galilean invariance or Galilean relativity states that the laws of motion are the same in all inertial frames of reference. Galileo Galilei first described this principle in 1632 in his '' Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems'' using t ...
and our notions of rigid ponderable bodies.
Instead he indicated that light is not propagated (in a medium) but is projected. This theory, however, is considered to be refuted.
Ritz's method
In 1909 Ritz developed a
direct method to find an approximate solution for
boundary value problems. It converts the often insoluble differential equation into solution of a matrix equation. It is a theoretical preparatory work for the
finite element method
The finite element method (FEM) is a popular method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical modeling. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural analysis, heat ...
(FEM). This method is also known Ritz's variation principle and the Rayleigh-Ritz principle.
Ritz's combination principle
In 1908, Ritz found empirically the
Ritz combination principle named after him. After that, the sum or difference of the frequencies of two spectral lines is often the frequency of another line. Which of these calculated frequencies is actually observed was only explained later by selection rules, which follow from quantum mechanical calculations. The basis for this was the spectral line research (
Balmer series
The Balmer series, or Balmer lines in atomic physics, is one of a set of six named series describing the spectral line emissions of the hydrogen atom. The Balmer series is calculated using the Balmer formula, an empirical equation discovered b ...
) by
Johann Jakob Balmer.
Honors
*The
lunar crater
Lunar craters are impact craters on Earth's Moon. The Moon's surface has many craters, all of which were formed by impacts. The International Astronomical Union currently recognizes 9,137 craters, of which 1,675 have been dated.
History
The wor ...
Ritz is named after him.
References
* Jean-Claude Pont (ed.) ''Le Destin Douloureux de Walther Ritz, physicien théoricien de génie'', Sion: Archives de l'Etat de Valais, 2012 (= Proceedings of the International Conference in Honor of Walther Ritz's 100th Anniversary).
External links
*
Abbreviated Biographical Sketch of Walter Ritz*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120902083928/https://webspace.utexas.edu/aam829/1/m/Relativity_files/RitzEinstein.pdf Ritz, Einstein and the Emission Hypothesis*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ritz, Walther
1878 births
1909 deaths
20th-century deaths from tuberculosis
People from Valais
Relativity critics
Swiss physicists
Tuberculosis deaths in Germany
University of Göttingen alumni