Lorentz also gave credit to Poincaré's contributions to relativity.

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:

Quantum mechanics

Lorentz gave a series of lectures in the fall of 1926 at Cornell University on the new quantum mechanics; in these he presented Erwin Schrödinger's wave mechanics.

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. Lorentz proposed to start from the basic hydrodynamic 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 . The Afsluitdijk was completed in 1932, and the predictions of Lorentz and his committee turned out to be remarkably accurate. Amongst others, the funeral was attended by Albert Einstein and Marie Curie.

Recognition

Memberships

{| class="wikitable"

! Year

! Organization

! Type

!

|-

| 1881

| Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

| Member

|

|-

| 1905

| Royal Society

| Foreign Member

|

|-

| 1906

| American Philosophical Society

| International Member

|

|-

| 1906

| National Academy of Sciences

| International Member

|

|-

| 1912

| American Academy of Arts and Sciences

| International Honorary Member

|

|}

Awards

{| class="wikitable"

! Year

! Organization

! Award

! Citation

!

|-

| 1902

| Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

| Nobel Prize in Physics

| "In recognition of the extraordinary service they rendered by their researches into the influence of magnetism upon radiation phenomena."

|

|-

| 1917

| Franklin Institute

| Franklin Medal

| "For researches which have contributed to our knowledge of the nature of light and the ultimate constitution of matter."

|

|-

| 1918

| Royal Society

| Copley Medal

| "On the ground of his distinguished researches in mathematical physics."

|

|}

Orders

{| class="wikitable"

! Year

! Head of state

! Order

!

|-

| 1908

| Wilhelm II

|

|

|}

Tributes

According to his 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."<br /> 1953: For me personally he meant more than all the others I have met on my life's journey.

Poincaré (1902) said of Lorentz's theory of electrodynamics:

Paul Langevin (1911) said of Lorentz:

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:

See also

  • 29208 Halorentz
  • Geertruida de Haas-Lorentz
  • Heaviside–Lorentz units
  • List of things named after Hendrik Antoon Lorentz
  • Lorentz covariance
  • Lorentz (crater)
  • Lorentz Medal
  • Lorentz oscillator model
  • Lorentz-violating electrodynamics
  • Modern searches for Lorentz violation
  • Trouton–Noble experiment

Publications

  • Many papers by Lorentz (mostly in English) are available for online viewing in the Proceedings of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science, Amsterdam.
  • , (Vol. I online)
  • English Wikisource translation: The Principle of Relativity and its Application to some Special Physical Phenomena

Notes

References

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Further reading

  • See 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)
  • Scanned publications of H. A. Lorentz
  • Scanned Ph.D. theses of the students of Lorentz.
  • Movie of Lorentz's funeral