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| - George Francis FitzGerald (3 August 1851 – 21 February 1901) was an Irish professor of "natural and experimental philosophy" at Trinity College, Dublin, in the late 19th century. FitzGerald was born at No 19, Lower Mount Street in Dublin on 3 August 1851 to the Reverend William FitzGerald and his wife Anne Francis Stoney. Professor of Moral Philosophy in Trinity and vicar of St Anne's, Dawson Street, at the time of his son's birth, William FitzGerald was consecrated Bishop of Cork in 1857 and translated to Killaloe in 1862. George returned to Dublin and entered Trinity as a student at the age of 16. He became a Fellow of Trinity in 1877 and spent the rest of his career at the College. Along with Oliver Lodge, Oliver Heaviside, and Heinrich Hertz, FitzGerald was a leading figure among the group of "Maxwellians" who revised, extended, clarified, and confirmed James Clerk Maxwell's theory of the electromagnetic field in the late 1870s and 1880s. In 1883, following from Maxwell's equations, he suggested a device for producing rapidly oscillating electric current, to generate electromagnetic waves, a phenomenon first shown experimentally by Heinrich Hertz in 1888. However, FitzGerald is better known for his conjecture in 1889 that if all moving objects were foreshortened in the direction of their motion, it would account for the curious result of the Michelson-Morley experiment. FitzGerald based this idea in part on the way electromagnetic forces were known to be affected by motion; in particular, he drew on equations that had been derived a short time before by his friend Oliver Heaviside. The Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz hit on a very similar idea in 1892 and developed it more fully in connection with his theory of electrons. The so-called FitzGerald-Lorentz contraction or Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction hypothesis later became an important part of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, published in 1905. Long a sufferer from digestive problems, George Francis FitzGerald succumbed to a perforated ulcer at home on 21 February 1901. FitzGerald was the nephew of George Johnstone Stoney, the Irish physicist who invented the term "electron". (en)
- George Francis FitzGerald, irländsk fysiker född 3 augusti 1851, död 22 februari 1901. Bekant dels för att han pekade på en metod att alstra radiovågor (senare experimentellt bekräftad av Heinrich Hertz), dels för att han formulerade teorin för den s.k. Lorentz-FitzGerald-kontraktionen, som Einstein använde i sin relativitetsteori. Kontraktionsteorin, som även utvecklades oberoende av holländaren Hendrik Lorentz, innebär att föremål som rör sig med hög hastighet förkortas i rörelseriktningen. (sv)
- George Francis FitzGerald (3 de agosto de 1851 – 21 de febrero de 1901) fue un profesor irlandés de "filosofía natural y experimental" en el Trinity College de Dublín, a finales del siglo XIX. (es)
- George Francis FitzGerald (* 3. August 1851 in Dublin, Irland; † 22. Februar 1901 ebenda) war ein irischer Physiker. Er war der Sohn von William FitzGerald, einem Professor für Moralphilosophie und späteren anglikanischen Bischof, und der Neffe von George Johnstone Stoney, dem das Elektron seinen Namen verdankt.Im Alter von 16 Jahren nahm George FitzGerald sein Studium am Trinity College in Dublin auf, wurde 1877 dort Fellow und schließlich Professor für Natur- und Experimentalphilosophie. FitzGerald forschte auf dem Gebiet der Elektrodynamik und entwarf, basierend auf den Maxwellschen Gleichungen, 1883 ein Gerät zur Erzeugung von elektromagnetischen Wellen. Weitaus bekannter ist er für seine 1884 aufgestellte Vermutung, dass alle in Bewegung befindlichen Objekte sich in der Richtung ihrer Bewegung verkürzen. Dies war eine Erklärung für das Ergebnis des Michelson-Morley-Experiments. Mathematische Gleichungen, die diese Behauptung messbar machten, stellte Hendrik A. Lorentz 1903 auf. Diese so genannte Lorentz-FitzGerald-Kontraktion wurde ein wichtiger Bestandteil von Albert Einsteins spezieller Relativitätstheorie, die sich u. a. mit der Erklärung dieses Phänomens beschäftigt. (de)
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| rdfs:comment
| - George Francis FitzGerald (3 August 1851 – 21 February 1901) was an Irish professor of "natural and experimental philosophy" at Trinity College, Dublin, in the late 19th century. FitzGerald was born at No 19, Lower Mount Street in Dublin on 3 August 1851 to the Reverend William FitzGerald and his wife Anne Francis Stoney. Professor of Moral Philosophy in Trinity and vicar of St Anne's, Dawson Street, at the time of his son's birth, William FitzGerald was consecrated Bishop of Cork in 1857 and translated to Killaloe in 1862. (en)
- George Francis FitzGerald, irländsk fysiker född 3 augusti 1851, död 22 februari 1901. (sv)
- George Francis FitzGerald (3 de agosto de 1851 – 21 de febrero de 1901) fue un profesor irlandés de "filosofía natural y experimental" en el Trinity College de Dublín, a finales del siglo XIX. (es)
- George Francis FitzGerald (* 3. August 1851 in Dublin, Irland; † 22. Februar 1901 ebenda) war ein irischer Physiker. (de)
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