Walter Ritz

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

His father, Raphael 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 co-work with Johannes Rydberg on the Rydberg-Ritz formula. Ritz is also known for the variational method named after him, the Ritz method. Not so well known is the fact that in 1908 he produced a lengthy criticsm of Maxwell-Lorentz electromagnetic theory, (See Maxwell equations.) 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." 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 (OEuvres) the disease was pleurisy.

[edit] 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.
• Gesammelte Werke - Walther Ritz - OEuvres, Societe suisse de physique, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1911, page viii.

[edit] External links

• Abbreviated Biographical Sketch of Walter Ritz
• Critical Researches on General Electrodynamics, Walter Ritz, 1908, English translation
• The Ritz-Einstein Agreement to Disagree