Lorentz–FitzGerald contraction
Contracción de Lorentz-FitzGerald
- Date
- 1889 (FitzGerald) / 1892 (Lorentz) · confidence high
- Place
- Dublin, Ireland
- Credited to
- George FitzGerald (independently reformulated by Hendrik Lorentz in 1892)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
FitzGerald proposed that moving bodies contract along their direction of motion to explain why the Michelson-Morley experiment failed to detect the ether wind; Lorentz independently reached the same idea three years later. The effect, later explained by special relativity, was one of the first hints that space and time are not absolute.
FitzGerald proposed it in 1889 in a short, largely unnoticed article; Lorentz, unaware of it, reached the same formula in 1892 within his electron theory.
What it led to
- Lorentz transformation
- Special theory of relativity