Walther Ritz

Walther Ritz (b. February 22, 1878 in Sion, Switzerland - d. 7 July, 1909 in Göttingen) was a Swiss theoretical physicist.

His father, Rafael Ritz, a native of Valais, was a well-known landscape and interior scenes artist. His mother was the daughter of the engineer Noerdlinger of Tübingen. Ritz studied in Zurich and Göttingen. He is most famous for his work with Johannes Rydberg on the Rydberg-Ritz formula. Ritz is also known for the variational method named after him, the Ritz method. Ritz died in 1909, at the age of 31. According to Forman's "Dictionary of Scientific Biography," Ritz contracted tuberculosis in 1900, which led to his death in 1909. According to Ritz's collected works (Œuvres) the disease was pleurisy.

Early Years

After graduating from college in 1895 he attended the course of technical lectures and in 1897 joined Zurich Polytechnic school. After some while he decided to abandon his initial plans to become an engineer and switched to the mathematical department of the same school. At this time Albert Einstein was studying at this department as well. In spring 1901 Ritz moved to Göttingen where he studied in university under the direction of physicists Woldemar Voigt, Karl Riecke, attended lectures of mathematicians David Hilbert, Felix Klein, of physicist Max Abraham and some other outstanding scientists.

Criticism of Maxwell-Lorentz electromagnetic theory

Not so well known is the fact that in 1908 Walter Ritz produced a lengthy criticism of Maxwell-Lorentz electromagnetic theory, in which he contended that the theory's connection with the "luminescent ether" (see Lorentz ether theory) made it "essentially inappropriate to express the comprehensive laws for the propagation of electrodynamic actions."

Walter Ritz pointed out seven problems with Maxwell-Lorentz electromagnetic field equations:
* Electric and magnetic forces really express relations about space and time and should be replaced with non-instantaneous elementary actions (his emission theory).
* Advanced potentials don't exist (and their erroneous use led to the Rayleigh-Jeans ultraviolet catastrophe).
* Localization of energy in the ether is vague.
* It is impossible to reduce gravity to the same notions.
* The unacceptable inequality of action and reaction is brought about by the concept of absolute motion with respect to the ether.
* Apparent relativistic mass increase can alternately be explained as a matter of electrical accelerating forces approaching zero when the relative velocity of a test charge approaches zero with respect to the speed of light flux particles for a given accelerator.
* The use of absolute coordinates, if independent of all motions of matter, requires throwing away the time honored use of Galilean relativity and our notions of rigid ponderable bodies

References

* Forman, P.," Dictionary of Scientific Biography" XI, 475, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1975.
* Ritz, W., "Annales Chemie et de Physique," 13, 145, (1908), page 172. See link to Critical Researches ..., below.
*" [http://gallica.bnf.fr/notice?N=FRBNF37271943 Gesammelte Werke - Walther Ritz - OEuvres] ", Societe suisse de physique, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1911, page viii.

External links

* [http://www.ebicom.net/~rsf1/ritz-bio.htm Abbreviated Biographical Sketch of Walter Ritz]
* [http://www.ebicom.net/~rsf1/crit/1908a.htm Critical Researches on General Electrodynamics, Walter Ritz, 1908, English translation]
* [http://www.ebicom.net/~rsf1/rtzein.htm The Ritz-Einstein Agreement to Disagree]