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Friedrich Kottler (December 10, 1886 – May 11, 1965) was an
Austrian theoretical
physicist . He was a
Privatdozent before he got a professorship in 1923 at the
University of Vienna .
Life
In 1938, after the
Anschluss , he lost his professorship due to his
Jewish ancestry. With the help of
Albert Einstein and
Wolfgang Pauli , he immigrated to America from his hometown of
Vienna, Austria , settling in
Rochester, New York , where he worked at the Eastman Kodak Research Laboratory.
[1]
[2] He died in Rochester, New York in 1965. Besides
optics , Kottler's professional pursuits focused on the
theory of relativity .
Contributions to relativity
In (1912), he presented a
general covariant formulation of
Maxwell's equations , based on the
absolute differential calculus , which is also valid within
Albert Einstein 's
General Relativity , before that theory was even developed.
[3] In relation to this, Einstein &
Marcel Grossmann gave credit to Kottler in 1913.
[4]
In (1912, 1914a, 1914b, 1916a, 1916b, 1918, 1921) Kottler worked on the description of accelerations and rotations in flat
Minkowski space ,
[5]
[6] using four-dimensional
Frenet-Serret formulas and the corresponding
orthonormal tetrads , and formulated the
proper reference frames for worldlines of constant curvatures given by
Gustav Herglotz in 1909, in particular for
hyperbolic motion (Kottler-
Møller metric
[7] ) and uniform
circular motion . In (1916a), he also discussed the conformal spacetime transformations (related to the
spherical wave transformation by
Harry Bateman and
Ebenezer Cunningham in 1909) as an alternative way to introduce accelerated frames.
In (1916b) he criticized the role of the
equivalence principle in general relativity, which prompted a reply by Einstein in the same year.
[8]
In (1918) he formulated the Kottler metric or Kottler spacetime (which has been described as "the only spherically symmetric solution of the
Einstein vacuum field equations with a
cosmological constant "
[9] ), as well as the Kottler-
Whittaker metric for a homogeneous gravitational field in flat spacetime.
[7]
In (1922a, 1922b) he argued that one can formulate Maxwell's equations and Newton's law of gravitation independently of any
metric .
[10]
In (1922c) he published the article "Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie" in Band 6 of
Klein's encyclopedia .
In (1924a, 1924b) he analyzed the
history of special relativity , focusing on the contributions of
Augustin-Jean Fresnel ,
Hendrik Lorentz ,
Henri Poincaré and Einstein.
Published works
1912:
Über die Raumzeitlinien der Minkowski'schen Welt , Wiener Sitzungsberichte 2a, 121: 1659–1759. (English Wikisource translation:
On the spacetime lines of a Minkowski world )
1914a:
Relativitätsprinzip und beschleunigte Bewegung , Annalen der Physik 349 (13), 701-748
1914b:
Fallende Bezugssysteme vom Standpunkte des Relativitätsprinzips , Annalen der Physik 349 (13), 701-748
1916a:
Beschleunigungsrelative Bewegungen und die konforme Gruppe der Minkowski'schen Welt , Wiener Sitzungsberichte 2a, 125, 899-919
1916b:
Über Einsteins Äquivalenzhypothese und die Gravitation , Annalen der Physik 355 (16), 955-972
1918:
Über die physikalischen Grundlagen der Einsteinschen Relativitätstheorie , Annalen der Physik, 4. Folge, Bd.60, S.401-461
1921:
Rotierende Bezugssysteme in einer Minkowskischen Welt , Physikalische Zeitschrift 22, 274-280 & 480-484
1922a: Newtonsches Gesetz und Metrik , Wiener Sitzungsberichte 2a, 131: 1-14. (English translation by David Delphenich:
Newton's laws and metrics )
1922b: Maxwellsche Gleichungen und Metrik , Wiener Sitzungsberichte 2a, 131: 119-146 (English translation by David Delphenich:
Maxwell’s equations and metrics )
1922c,
Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie , Encyklopädie der mathematischen Wissenschaften mit Einschluss ihrer Anwendungen, 6.2.2, 159-237
1923,
Zur Theorie der Beugung an schwarzen Schirmen (On the theory of diffraction at black screens ), Annalen der Physik, 375 (6): 405–56.
1924a,
Considerations de critique historique sur la theorie de la relativite. Partie 1: De Fresnel à Lorentz ,
Scientia , 36, pp. 231–242
1924b,
Considerations de critique historique sur la theorie de la relativite. Partie 2: Henri Poincaré et Albert Einstein , Scientia, 36, pp. 301–316
References
^ Goenner, Hubert (editor). The expanding worlds of general relativity , Einstein studies (vo. 7), Birkhäuser, 1999,
ISBN
0-8176-4060-6
^ Pauli, Wolfgang. Wissenschaftlicher Briefwechsel mit Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg u.a.. , Springer, 1979,
ISBN
3-540-08962-4
^
Karin Reich : Die Entwicklung des Tensorkalküls. Vom absoluten Differentialkalkül zur Relativitätstheorie, Birkhäuser 1994,
ISBN
3034884869
^ Einstein, A., & Grossmann, M. "Entwurf einer verallgemeinerten Relativitätstheorie und einer Theorie der Gravitation" (Teubner, Leipzig, 1913).
^ Romain, J. E. (1963). "Time measurements in accelerated frames of reference". Reviews of Modern Physics . 35 (2): 376–388.
Bibcode :
1963RvMP...35..376R .
doi :
10.1103/RevModPhys.35.376 .
^ Havas, P. (1999). Einstein, relativity and gravitation research in Vienna before 1938. The Expanding Worlds of General Relativity, 161.
^
a
b Muñoz, Gerardo; Jones, Preston (2010). "The equivalence principle, uniformly accelerated reference frames, and the uniform gravitational field". American Journal of Physics . 78 (4): 377–383.
arXiv :
1003.3022 .
Bibcode :
2010AmJPh..78..377M .
doi :
10.1119/1.3272719 .
S2CID
118616525 .
^ Einstein, A. (1916).
"Über Friedrich Kottlers Abhandlung "Über Einsteins Äquivalenzhypothese und die Gravitation" " . Annalen der Physik . 356 (22): 639–642.
Bibcode :
1916AnP...356..639E .
doi :
10.1002/andp.19163562206 .
^ Perlick, V. (2004).
"Gravitational lensing from a spacetime perspective" . Living Rev. Relativ . 7 (9): 9.
arXiv :
1010.3416 .
Bibcode :
2004LRR.....7....9P .
doi :
10.12942/lrr-2004-9 .
PMC
5255571 .
PMID
28179867 . (Open access)
^ Hehl, F. W., Itin, Y., & Obukhov, Y. N. (2016). "On Kottler's path: Origin and evolution of the premetric program in gravity and in electrodynamics". International Journal of Modern Physics D . 25 (11): 1640016–206.
arXiv :
1607.06159 .
Bibcode :
2016IJMPD..2540016H .
doi :
10.1142/S0218271816400162 .
S2CID
119281670 . {{
cite journal }}
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