H. A. Lorentz. The theory of electrons

H. A. Lorentz. The theory of electrons. Leipzig, B. Teubner. Second edition, 1919.

Lorentz’s book, in the twelve years that have elapsed since the appearance of its first edition, has become a classic and may rightly be placed alongside Newton’s Principia and Maxwell’s Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, as a milestone marking a new stage in the physical worldview. The book is a brilliant development of all the numerous consequences flowing from the fundamental differential equations of the electron formulated by Lorentz, and at the same time it sums up an entire period of theoretical physics, the end of which approximately coincides with the emergence of quantum theory and the principle of relativity. We have already moved on to a new stage in the history of physics, but the outlines of the new worldview are not yet clear; Lorentz’s book is a monument to the preceding classical epoch.

The second edition of The Theory of Electrons has remained essentially unchanged, preserving its classical completeness. The original text is completely untouched. The book has increased by 10 pages, and the additions (placed in the notes to the second part of the book) concern a few new experimental data and are devoted, in large part, to the principle of relativity as applied to the motion of the electron. One small addition, of a purely methodological character, concerns quantum theory.

S. Vavilov.