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LVII. Notices respecting New Books. 

 The Scientific Writings of the late George Francis FitzGerald. 



Collected and Edited with a Historical Introduction by Joseph 



Larmor, Sec. B.S., Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. 



Dublin : Hodges, Figgis, & Co. ; London : Longmans, Green, 



& Co. 1902. 

 TT will be long before the painful impression created by Fitz- 

 -*- Gerald's early death wears out among his contemporaries. A 

 regret, less personal perhaps, will at all times be evoked by the 

 perusal of these papers that their brilliant author should have been 

 taken from the harvest time of life. 



Although there are but a few — among whom the distinguished 

 editor of this book is one of the foremost — who can enter fully 

 into FitzGerald's ideas in all their varied scope, there are few also 

 who will not find in this collection of scientific writings something 

 in their particular line of study which they may listen to as 

 students to the words of a master. For it may safely be asserted 

 that no scientist of his times was more extensively acquainted with 

 contemporary scientific thought than was FitzGerald ; and being of 

 a fertile invention and always desirous of assisting others his ideas 

 ranged over the whole extent of physical science, and often well 

 over its boundaries into other divisions of scientific thought. But 

 the salient feature of his writings is, undoubtedly, his work in the 

 field opened more especially by Maxwell, and perhaps the chief event 

 in his scientific career his connexion with, and participation in, the 

 work of Hertz. Far the larger part of this volume of scientific papers 

 is devoted to his papers on electromagnetic theory. To the last 

 days of his life this subject occupied his thoughts. In the twenty- 

 five years preceding his death — dating from his paper on the 

 Kerr effect (in which FitzGerald first experienced the highest 

 pleasure of the investigator, that of predicting the result) — Fitz- 

 Gerald was one of the foremost in this field ; and those of his 

 contemporaries who have worked along with him will be chiefly 

 glad of this collection of his writings and of their careful editing, 

 by Prof. Larmor. 



Any analysis of these several memoirs here would be superfluous — 

 even did the present writer feel qualified for the task — in view of 

 the very complete review which the editor has supplied as an 

 introduction to the collected papers. Indeed this introductory 

 account of the life and thought of FitzGerald by Prof. Larmor 

 (reprinted with additions from the 'Physical Review') might be 

 taken as a model of what the editor's work should be in such a 

 case, and adds greatly to the value of the book. Here the student 

 of his papers may find not only a synopsis of the paper he desires to 

 peruse, but also an account of its bearing on preceding and con- 

 temporary thought and its influence on scientific advance. 



But, as already said, papers appear here on many branches of 

 Physical Science. FitzGerald's attention to the physics of the aether 

 by no means resulted in neglect of other branches of scientific thought. 



