George Francis FitzGerald

FitzGerald was born at No. 19, Lower Mount Street in Dublin on 3 August 1851 to the Reverend William FitzGerald and his wife Anne Frances Stoney (sister of George Johnstone Stoney and Bindon Blood Stoney).{{cite book |title=The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers |last=Hockey |first=Thomas |year=2009 |publisher=Springer Publishing |isbn=978-0-387-31022-0 |access-date=22 August 2012 |url=http://www.springerreference.com/docs/html/chapterdbid/58462.html}} Professor of Moral Philosophy in Trinity and vicar of St Anne's, Dawson Street, at the time of his son's birth, William FitzGerald was consecrated Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross in 1857 and translated to Killaloe and Clonfert in 1862. George returned to Dublin and entered Trinity College Dublin as a student at the age of 16, winning a scholarship in 1870 and graduating in 1871 in Mathematics and Experimental Science. He became a Fellow of Trinity in 1877 and spent the rest of his career there, becoming Erasmus Smith's Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy in 1881.{{Cite web |title=Fitzgerald, George Francis {{!}} Dictionary of Irish Biography |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/fitzgerald-george-francis-a3146 |access-date=2023-02-21 |website=www.dib.ie |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=George FitzGerald - Biography |url=https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/FitzGerald/ |access-date=2023-02-21 |website=Maths History |language=en}}

Along with Oliver Lodge, Oliver Heaviside and Heinrich Hertz, FitzGerald was a leading figure among the group of "Maxwellians" who revised, extended, clarified, and confirmed James Clerk Maxwell's mathematical theories of the electromagnetic field during the late 1870s and the 1880s.Bruce J. Hunt (1991) The Maxwellians, Cornell University Press

In 1883, following from Maxwell's equations, FitzGerald was the first to suggest a device for producing rapidly oscillating electric currents to generate electromagnetic waves, a phenomenon which was first shown to exist experimentally by the German physicist Heinrich Hertz in 1888.Professor Reville, William (2001). [http://undersci.ucc.ie/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2014/11/George_Francis_Fitzgerald.pdf George Francis FitzGerald – Eminent Irish Physicist] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161129150915/http://undersci.ucc.ie/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2014/11/George_Francis_Fitzgerald.pdf |date=29 November 2016 }}

In 1878, FitzGerald was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA).{{Cite web |title=Fitzgerald, George Francis |url=https://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/life-society/science-technology/irish-scientists/george-francis-fitzgerald/ |access-date=2024-09-30 |website=www.askaboutireland.ie}} He was Secretary of the Royal Dublin Society from 1881-1889.{{Cite web |last=Dublin |first=Trinity College |title=George Francis Fitzgerald - School of Physics {{!}} Trinity College Dublin |url=https://www.tcd.ie/physics/300/erasmus-smiths-professors/george-francis-fitzgerald/ |access-date=2024-09-30 |website=www.tcd.ie |language=en}} In 1883, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). In 1899, was awarded a Royal Medal for his investigations in theoretical physics. In 1900, he was made an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (HonFRSE).

FitzGerald, a crater on the far side of the Moon, was named in his honour, as well as the Fitzgerald Building at Trinity College Dublin.

FitzGerald suffered from many digestive problems for much of his shortened life. He became very ill with stomach problems. He died at his home, 7 Ely Place{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|access-date=9 May 2016|archive-date=24 January 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130124115814/http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|url-status=dead}} in Dublin, shortly after an operation on a perforated ulcer on 21 February 1901. He is buried in Mount Jerome cemetery.

File:George Francis Fitzgerald Plaque Dublin.jpg

{{Wikisource|The Ether and the Earth's Atmosphere}}

FitzGerald is better known for his conjecture in his short letter to the editor of Science ({{cite journal|author-link=George Francis FitzGerald|journal=Science|title=The Ether and the Earth's Atmosphere|volume=13|issue=328|pages=390|year=1889|doi=10.1126/science.ns-13.328.390|last1=FitzGerald|first1=George Francis|pmid=17819387|s2cid=43610293|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1448315}}) that if all moving objects were foreshortened in the direction of their motion, it would account for the curious null-results of the Michelson–Morley experiment. FitzGerald based this idea in part on the way electromagnetic forces were known to be affected by motion. In particular, FitzGerald used some equations that had been derived a short time before by his friend the electrical engineer Oliver Heaviside. The Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz hit on a very similar idea in 1892 and developed it more fully into Lorentz transformations, in connection with his theory of electrons.

The Lorentz–FitzGerald contraction (or FitzGerald–Lorentz contraction) hypothesis became an essential part of the Special Theory of Relativity, as Albert Einstein published it in 1905. He demonstrated the kinematic nature of this effect, by deriving it from the principle of relativity and the constancy of the speed of light.

FitzGerald married, on 21 December 1885, Harriette Mary, daughter of the Reverend John Hewitt Jellett, Provost of TCD and Dorothea Morris Morgan. He had eight children by her, three sons and five daughters.{{cite DNB12|wstitle=FitzGerald, George Francis |first=Charles Herbert|last=Lees}}

FitzGerald was the nephew of George Johnstone Stoney, the Irish physicist who coined the term "electron". After the particles were discovered by J. J. Thomson and Walter Kaufmann in 1896, FitzGerald was the one to propose calling them electrons. FitzGerald was also the nephew of Bindon Blood Stoney, an eminent Irish engineer. His cousin was Edith Anne Stoney, a pioneer female medical physicist.{{citation needed|date=January 2015}}

File:Fitzgerald flying.jpg

FitzGerald, in common with others at the end of the nineteenth century, became obsessed with the desire to fly. His attempts in College Park, in Trinity College Dublin, in 1895 involved large numbers of students pulling tow-ropes attached to the Lilienthal glider, and attracted the attention of the people of Dublin, beyond the Nassau Street railings. FitzGerald took off his coat on these occasions, but retained his top hat, which was normal headgear for a Fellow at that time. The experiments were not crowned with success, and were eventually abandoned. The flying machine hung for many years in the Museum Building until an idle engineering student applied a match to the cord from which it was hanging. The flame travelled along the cord and consumed the glider before the helpless onlookers.{{cite book |last1=Bailey |first1=Kenneth |title=A History of Trinity College Dublin, 1892-1945 |date=1947 |publisher=The University Press |location=Dublin |pages=208–209}}

{{reflist}}

• Jarret, Philip. "Soaring Inspiration: Otto Lilienthal's Influence in Britain". Air Enthusiast, No. 65, September–October 1996, pp. 2–7. {{ISSN|0143-5450}}.

{{commons}}

• {{wikiquote-inline}}
• {{MacTutor Biography|id=FitzGerald}}
• [https://library.rds.ie/cgi-bin/koha/opac-search.pl?idx=kw&idx=kw&idx=kw&do=Search&limit=mc-ccode%3AGFF&sort_by=title_az FitzGerald letters at the Royal Dublin Society, with digitized images of over 2000 letters to and from FitzGerald]
• [http://www.myirishheritage.net/fitzgerald-kilcarragh-family.html FitzGerald of Kilcarragh] – Genealogical Pedigree of George Francis FitzGerald

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