George FitzGerald
George Francis FitzGerald ( born August 3, 1851 in Dublin, Ireland, † February 22, 1901 ) 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, which the electron derives its name.
At the age of 16 years, George FitzGerald continued his studies at Trinity College in Dublin, was in 1877 a Fellow and finally professor of natural and experimental philosophy.
FitzGerald research in the field of electrodynamics and designed, based on Maxwell's equations, 1883, a device for generating electromagnetic waves. By far he is known for his 1884 established presumption that all objects in motion are shortened in the direction of their movement. This was an explanation for the result of the Michelson -Morley experiment of 1881 or 1887. FitzGerald published his thesis in 1889 in Science, a few years before Hendrik A. Lorentz (1892, 1895). This so-called Lorentz - FitzGerald contraction was an important part of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, which inter alia deals with the explanation of this phenomenon.
He added the works of Maxwell on the electromagnetic theory of light. The magnetic dipole is sometimes referred to as dipole shear Fitzgerald. For Hertzian vector of Fitzgeraldsche vector is dual.