creators_name: Brown, Harvey R
type: pittpreprint
datestamp: 2001-04-11
lastmod: 2010-10-07 15:10:12
metadata_visibility: show
title: The origins of length contraction: I. The FitzGerald-Lorentz deformation
subjects: relativity-theory
subjects: history-of-science-case-studies
full_text_status: public
keywords: Relativity, history of relativity, Michelson-Morley experiment, kinematics, length contraction
abstract: One of the widespread confusions concerning the history of the 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment has to do with the initial explanation of this celebrated null result due independently to FitzGerald and Lorentz. In neither case was a strict, longitudinal length contraction hypothesis invoked, as is commonly supposed. Lorentz postulated, particularly in 1895, any one of a certain family of possible deformation effects for rigid bodies in motion, including purely transverse alteration, and expansion as well as contraction; FitzGerald may well have had the same family in mind. A careful analysis of the Michelson-Morley experiment (which reveals a number of serious inadequacies in many text-book treatments) indeed shows that strict contraction is not required
date: 2001-04
date_type: published
refereed: FALSE
citation: Brown, Harvey R (2001) The origins of length contraction: I. The FitzGerald-Lorentz deformation. [Preprint]
document_url: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/218/1/Origins_of_contraction.pdf