Abstract
PROF. SCHOTT'S original essay is, in this book, supplemented by a series of valuable appendices, which amply justify the delay in its publication. The work is deductive in plan; its foundations are the electromagnetic equations of Maxwell and Hertz, together with the Larmor-Lorentz expression for the mechanical, force on a moving charge. The “retarded potentials” of the electromagnetic field are transformed so as to yield Schott's solutions, in the form of “modified Fourier integrals,” and most of the calculations are performed from these as starting point. They lead simply, and with considerable mathematical rigour, to many results obtained by other writers; in particular, the “point laws” of Lienard and Wiechert are deduced, and are used to illustrate the general features of the electromagnetic field in a number of special cases. The exact calculations, however, are more readily executed with Schott's expressions, and various simple cases of motion of electrons are thus dealt with, as, e.g., uniform or uniformly accelerated rectilinear motion. Periodic motions, such as uniform circular motion of a single electron, or of a ring of electrons, are also discussed. More complex cases, like pseudo-perioHic or aperiodic motions, cannot be solved completely, but the distant field is approximated to. Specially interesting are the problems relating to the pulse theory of the X-rays, and the precessional motion of a ring of electrons, as applied to Ritz's theory of the Zeeman effect.
Electromagnetic Radiation and the Mechanical Reactions arising from it.
Being an Adams Prize Essay in the University of Cambridge. By Dr. G. A. Schott. Pp. xxii + 330. (Cambridge: University Press, 1912.) Price 18s. net.
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Electromagnetic Radiation and the Mechanical Reactions arising from it . Nature 90, 301 (1912). https://doi.org/10.1038/090301a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/090301a0