Fitzgerald, George Francis

Fitzgerald, George Francis, 1851–1901, Irish physicist. Fitzgerald was born in Dublin and studied and taught at Trinity College there. He is best known for suggesting how the ether , by causing the contraction of bodies moving through it, could account for the null results of the Michelson-Morley experiment (see relativity ). His main research effort, however, was to work out the consequences of Maxwell's electromagnetic theory for phenomena not considered by Maxwell, such as the reflection and refraction of light.

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