Lorentz-HA: Investigator sites log

Run 2026-10-08 (first run)

Web time used: 9.7 minutes (583 s wall clock by date +%s; cap 10 min). The search stopped at the cap. Browser: Chrome (own tab, closed at the end). Google showed an "unusual traffic" CAPTCHA at about 6 min and DuckDuckGo an image CAPTCHA. Neither was solved, and the rest used WebSearch and scripted fetches. Downloads: none. research/files/ is empty. Downloadable PDFs are listed with URLs below; downloading them needs the owner's go-ahead. Pages and full texts that were grepped are saved in research/pages/ (evidence trail, not published). Stance: leads, not verdicts (STEP I). Lorentz is a mainstream figure, so most of the record here is scholarly and archival.

Keywords tried

• Google: "Lorentz" archief Noord-Hollands Archief inventaris "Lorentz" Hendrik Antoon correspondence; Lorentz lectures Columbia University 1906 "Ernest Kempton Adams" OR "Spectator" electrons; Lorentz 1927 "Conference on the Michelson-Morley experiment" Astrophysical Journal 1928 Lorentz remarks local time; neo-Lorentzian relativity preferred frame Builder Prokhovnik Jánossy Ives "Lorentz ether theory" physical contraction; Lorentz letter Einstein aether "Lorentz to Einstein" 1915 OR 1916 OR 1919 einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu; dwc.knaw.nl Lorentz "Electromagnetic phenomena in a system moving with any velocity smaller than that of light" pdf; Brace 1904 "double refraction" "motion through the ether" Philosophical Magazine Rayleigh 1902 repetition; Jánossy "Theory of relativity based on physical reality" Lorentz ether contraction physical OR Prokhovnik "Logic of special relativity"; Kox "Scientific Correspondence of H.A. Lorentz" volume 2 Theory of Electrons second edition 1916 Columbia (CAPTCHA).
• DuckDuckGo: Kox "Scientific Correspondence of H.A. Lorentz" volume 2; review Lorentz "Theory of Electrons" 1909 OR 1916 Nature OR Science "second edition" (CAPTCHA).
• WebSearch: Zahn Spees 1938 "critical analysis of the classical experiments on the variation of electron mass" Bucherer Neumann; Lorentz "The Theory of Electrons" review 1909 Nature OR "Physical Review" OR Science book review Columbia lectures.
• NHA archive 364 search: Columbia, electrons, relativiteit, ether, elektronen, Einstein, Kaufmann, Bucherer, Michelson, Miller, Morley, Poincaré, Voigt.
• Columbia Spectator: Lorentz (1906).
• Delpher: "Lorentz" "Columbia" New-York (1905-1906).
• archive.org API: creator:(Lorentz, H*) AND mediatype:texts; title:(Relativitätsprinzip) AND (Lorentz); Lorentz AND ("drei Vorlesungen" OR Teylers).
• Not yet tried: "Lorentz" + "Fitz Gerald"/"FitzGerald" contraction 1892 Verslagen; "Versuch einer Theorie der elektrischen und optischen Erscheinungen in bewegten Körpern" 1895; "corresponding states" ("übereinstimmende Zustände"); "Ortszeit"; Teubner "Sammlung mathematisch-physikalischer Lehrbücher" Band 29; Kox Schatz "A Living Work of Art"; Dutch "Lorentz ether" "aether" Verslagen KNAW; Nobel Archive (1902 prize, Lorentz-Zeeman); Hupka 1910; Guye Lavanchy 1915 Comptes rendus 161; Schaefer Neumann 1913.

Leads for review

1. The inventor's own work

• Lorentz, Das Relativitätsprinzip (Haarlem/Teylers lectures 1913; Teubner 1914), archive.org bub_gb_89PPAAAAMAAJ [web]. Lorentz says Einstein's "abolition" of the ether is "to a certain degree a dispute about words" ("it makes no great difference whether one speaks of the vacuum or of the ether"). He says the preference between the views depends on one's habits of thought, and that he himself finds "a certain satisfaction" in an ether with "some substantiality", sharply separated space and time, and absolute simultaneity. He also keeps a reservation about the claim that nothing will ever be seen to move faster than light. Bears on claims 5 and 6 (reciprocity; Lorentz's preference for ether-fixed rods and clocks). research/2026-10-08-internet-archive.md
• First edition (1909), Note 87 [web, archive.org cu31924005244615]. "Recent experiments by Bucherer ... have confirmed the formula (313) for the transverse electromagnetic mass, so that, in all probability, the only objection ... has now been removed." Lorentz's acceptance of the deformable electron dates from 1909, on Bucherer 1908 alone. The [1915] Note 86 adds Hupka, Schaefer and Neumann, and Guye and Lavanchy. Bears on claim 3.
• NHA archive 364, Lorentz papers [web]: item 398, a treatise defending the concept of the ether (claim 6); item 495, a particle's equation of motion "at 'effective' times" (claims 1 and 5); item 501, longitudinal and transverse mass in connection with Kaufmann's results (claim 3); item 135, a note on Bucherer's work and relativity (claim 3); item 486, electron energy and shape, von Laue, Poincaré's model (claim 3); item 528, lecture notes on special relativity; Einstein letters 1909-1927 (5 in 1915, the year of Notes 72 and 75). Undated items need dating.
• Lorentz at the 1927 Mount Wilson conference, ApJ 68 (1928) 341ff., pp.345-351 [web, via Wikipedia; primary not yet read]: "I considered my time transformation only as a heuristic working hypothesis. So the theory of relativity is really solely Einstein's work." This is a later own statement matching Note 72* (claim 6).
• Lorentz 1904, Proc. KNAW 6, the original of Chapter V §§169-178 [web] https://dwc.knaw.nl/DL/publications/PU00014148.pdf (claims 1-3).
• Lectures on Theoretical Physics vol. I, "Aether theories and aether models" (Leiden lectures; Eng. 1927) [web]. Vol. III, "The Principle of Relativity for Uniform Translations" (Leiden 1910-1912), has not been located online yet. Problems of Modern Physics (Caltech 1922) is lending-only on archive.org.
• Columbia lectures, 1906 [web, Columbia Spectator]: the series started 23 March 1906, and "Optical Phenomena in Moving Systems" (Chapter V) was given on 26-27 April 1906. Dutch press notices (Algemeen Handelsblad 31-01-1906; Zutphensche Courant 23-04-1906).

2. Supporting information by others

• Experiments on the speed dependence of electron mass, 1908-1915 (Bucherer 1908, Wolz 1909, Hupka 1909/10, Neumann 1914, Guye and Lavanchy 1915), summarised as agreeing with the Lorentz-Einstein formula. Later evidence: Glitscher 1917 (hydrogen fine structure) and Rogers et al. 1940 [web, Wikipedia]. Bears on claim 3. Evidence in the other direction, stated as well: Zahn and Spees (Phys. Rev. 53, 1938, 511-521) and Faragó and Jánossy (Nuovo Cimento 1957) argued that the early experiments rested on wrong or imprecise assumptions and could show only a qualitative mass increase, not decide between the theories [web, Wikipedia summary; primary papers not yet read]. Potters (HSNS 2023) studies how precision was obtained from the photographic plates [web].
• Rayleigh (1902) and Brace (1904) double-refraction null results, and Lorentz's and Larmor's 1904 accounts of them with the full transformation [web, Wikipedia] (claim 4).
• Kennedy-Thorndike (1932): contraction alone cannot explain its null result; time dilation is needed [web] (claims 2 and 5). Trouton-Rankine (1908): no contraction effect in the rest frame [web].
• Einstein, Leiden 1920: the Lorentzian ether lost every mechanical property except immobility, and SR removed immobility too [web, Wikisource] (claim 6, Einstein's characterization).

3. Closely related work

• Neo-Lorentzian / preferred-frame interpretations: L. Jánossy, Theory of Relativity Based on Physical Reality (1971); S. J. Prokhovnik, The Logic of Special Relativity (1967); H. E. Ives (a Lorentzian approach; Wikipedia calls such views "unfounded within the mainstream", its characterization); J. S. Bell's "Lorentzian" teaching; the Robertson-Mansouri-Sexl test theory (ether frame with free contraction and dilation parameters); Schmelzer 2012 (Lorentz ether extended to gravity); M. Arminjon's scalar ether gravity; S. V. M. Clube 1980, "Does neo-lorentzian relativity exist?" [web]. Bears on claims 2, 5 and 6: the contraction and clock slowing as physical effects of motion through a medium.
• Bischoff van Heemskerck, F1000Research 12:407 (2023, v2): contraction and dilation as "purely local consequences of the relative velocity between a system and its medium". It drops reciprocity, matches the standard tests, and proposes a modified Ives-Stilwell test [web] (claims 2 and 5).
• Dayton C. Miller's ether-drift repetitions: Lorentz lectured on them in 1925-26 (NHA item 289) and corresponded with Miller in 1906, 1921 and 1926 [web]. Miller reported a non-null drift [memory, high]. This links claim 2 to the later dispute over Miller's data.

4. Historical record

• Columbia Spectator 1906 lecture notices; Ernest Kempton Adams Fund (founded 17 Dec 1904 by Edward Dean Adams; this book is Publication No. 2) [web].
• NHA archive 364: letters from Kaufmann 1904, Morley 1904, Miller 1906, Bucherer 1908 and 1909, and Voigt from 1888. Lorentz's p.207 footnote says Voigt's 1887 paper had "escaped my notice all these years". The 1888 Voigt letters (with a Lorentz draft) are a record to read; what they concern is unknown [web].
• Kox (ed.), Scientific Correspondence of H.A. Lorentz, vol. I (2008; 434 of about 6,000 letters) and vol. 2 (2018, Dutch correspondents); Kox and Schatz, A Living Work of Art (biography); Kox 2005, chapter on the 1909 edition; E. B. Wilson's review of the 2nd edition, Bull. AMS 24 (1917) 100-101 [web].

Corrections to earlier documents

• claims.md claim 3; facts.json (Ch. V second part, key claim 9: "Lorentz's 1915 Note 86 cites later experiments as confirming it"; Notes 62-86 entry). These are not wrong, but they are incomplete in a way that can mislead. The first edition (1909) already has Note 87 "(Page 230)": "Recent experiments by Bucherer ... have confirmed the formula (313) for the transverse electromagnetic mass, so that, in all probability, the only objection that could be raised against the hypothesis of the deformable electron and the principle of relativity has now been removed" (citing Bucherer, Phys. Zeitschr. 9, 1908, p.755) [web: https://archive.org/details/cu31924005244615, djvu text]. The [1915] Note 86 of the 2nd edition [read: PDF p.348] keeps that sentence and widens the list of experiments. Suggested wording for claim 3: "...in the 1909 edition (Note 87) he already reports Bucherer's 1908 experiments as confirming these masses; the [1915] Note 86 adds Hupka, Schaefer and Neumann, and Guye and Lavanchy." Note also that the note number differs between editions (87 in 1909, 86 in 1916).
• Checks against the 1909 text that agree with the current documents: the Einstein comparison ("simply postulates") and the Voigt footnote are already in the 1909 text; "chief cause of my failure" (Note 72*) is absent from 1909, so it is new in 1915 as claims.md says.