By the good agreement of my measurements with this theory, the question after the constitution of the electron seemed to be decided at first. Then, a work by H. A. Lorentz[1] appeared in the year 1904, in which the attempt was made to remove the difficulties which sill existed in the optics of moving bodies, by somewhat modified fundamental assumptions on the electron and also on the molecular forces acting in-between the material body-particles. While namely the original theory of Lorentz[2] gave an influence of second order[3] of Earth's motion upon certain optical and electromagnetic phenomena, all attempts to experimentally demonstrate[4] these influences, steadily led to negative results for the time being, so that the conviction became stronger that one has to modify the fundamental equations of electrodynamics, so that the "absolute velocities" related to an arbitrarily defined coordinate-system occur as computational quantities in the fundamental equations, but they have to vanish in the end results, so that the observed magnitudes would only depend on the directly observable "relative velocities" of ponderable bodies against each other.
Lorentz now showed, that one could arrive at such a result, when it is assumed that the dimensions of all physical bodies, including their individual molecules and electrons, would change their shape in a very specific way with velocity; namely, when is the velocity of the system, the speed
- ↑ H. A. Lorentz, Versl. Kon. Akad. v. Wet. te Amsterdam. 27. Mai 1904.
- ↑ H. A. Lorentz, Versuch einer Theorie etc. Leiden 1895.
- ↑ That is, an influence whose magnitude is proportional to the squared ratio of Earth's velocity to the speed of light
- ↑ For literature, see. H. A. Lorentz, "Theory of Electrons" in the Enzyklopädie d. mathematischen Wissenschaften, as well as the now cited work of the same author.
