Electrodynamics Of Moving Bodies Research Articles

On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Mechanics and Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies

The aspiration to clarify and visualize Einstein’s interpretation of the notion of simultaneity and relativistic understanding of length and time interval measurements led to the development of a model in which light pulses were replaced by sound signals. The model revealed the essence of Einstein’s mathematical constructs and the mechanism for origination of relativistic effects. Moreover, its consistent application produced novel results in particular, constructing a relativity theory based on derivation of its fundamentals out of a thought experiment. Using this approach, the ex-perimentally observed independence of the speed of light from the motion of source and observer was a necessary consequence of the finiteness of propagation speed for all kinds of in-formation. The paper provides a rationale for the logical framework formulated in article [1], and describes the experimental device built to validate the predictions of the theory and the results obtained.

On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies

On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies

Classical-Electromagnetic and Relativistic Approaches to the Problem of Nonintegral Atomic Masses

Central to the history of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity is its relationship to the ultimate formulation of prerelativistic? classical?electromagnetic theory as most forcefully represented by the electron theory of H. A. Lorentz. The genetic, logical, and competitive relationships between these two approaches to physical theory have been most studied in connection with the problem of the electrodynamics of moving bodies. Both of these theoretical systems, however, had ramifications far beyond the electrodynamics of mov ing bodies. In particular, both provided solutions to the long standing (and in the early twentieth century newly interesting) prob lem of nonintegral atomic weights and masses. This paper will be concerned with the contemporaneous development (through 1915) and subsequent interaction (through 1930) of the two approaches to the problem of nonintegral atomic weights and masses (that is, nu clear mass defects). In section one, the problem of nonintegral atomic weights and masses will be introduced. Section two will trace the development of the classical-electromagnetic concept of electromagnetic mass: its roots in J J. Thomson's seminal paper of 1881, its formulation by Lorentz and others in the years around 1900, and its application to the problem of nonintegral atomic masses by Ernest Rutherford and inde pendently by William Harkins and Ernest Wilson in the years 1914 1915. Section three will be concerned with the relativistic mass