Max Abraham was a German physicist. He is famous for his theory of the electron, which was developed in 1902, and spoke to phenomena of the electromagnetic field.
Background
Ethnicity:
Max Abraham was born into a Jewish family who had made considerable amounts of money as merchants.
Abraham was born in Danzig, Imperial Germany (now Gdańsk in Poland) to a family of Jewish merchants. His father was Moritz Abraham and his mother was Selma Moritzsohn.
Education
Max Abraham attended the University of Berlin, where he studied under Max Planck, and completed his doctoral dissertation graduating in 1897.
Career
After Max's graduation in 1897, Max Abraham then assisted his teacher Max Planck at Berlin and in 1900 assumed the position of Privatdozent at Göttingen. In 1909, he accepted a professorship at the University of Illinois, but he did not like the atmosphere at a small American university and returned to Göttingen after one semester. He then took the post of professor of rational mechanics at the University of Milan, where he remained until 1914. When World War I broke out, he was forced to return to Germany. He spent the war years investigating theoretical problems in radio transmission for the Telefunkengesellschaft.
After the war, unable to return to Milan, he substituted as professor of physics at the Technische Hochschule at Stuttgart. Finally, in 1921, he received the call to a chair of theoretical physics at Aachen. On the trip to Aachen in April 1921, he was stricken with a fatal brain tumor. Abraham died after six painful months in a hospital in Munich. “Just as his life was suffering, his end was full of agony” (Born and von Laue).
Abraham is best remembered for his two-volume textbook, Theorie der Elektrizität, which went through five editions during his lifetime. Volume I, first published in 1904, was an adaptation of Föppl’s Einführung in die Maxwellsche Theorie der Elektrizität. Volume II, subtitled “Der Elektromagnetische Theorie der Strahlung” (“The Electromagnetic Theory of Radiation”) contained Abraham’s theory of electrons. It appeared in 1905. Subsequent to Abraham’s death the book was revised under the authorship of Abraham and Becker. Today the modern counterpart of Abraham’s text, R. Becker and F. Sauter’s Electromagnetic Fields and Interactions, is in use.
The Abraham textbook was the standard work in electrodynamics in Germany for several generations of physicists. His consistent use of vectors was a significant factor in the rapid acceptance of vector notation in Germany. But one of the most noteworthy features of the text was that in each new edition Abraham saw fit to include not only the latest experimental work but also the latest in theoretical contributions, even if these contributions were in dispute. Furthermore, he had no hesitation, after explicating both sides of a question, in using the book to argue his own point of view. This was especially true with regard to theories of the electron as well as with regard to rival views of space and time.
Abraham’s theory of the electron was developed in 1902 shortly after a close friend, Wilhelm Kaufmann, had published his first tentative experimental results on the variation of the transverse mass of the electron as a function of its velocity. The basic underlying assumptions of Abraham’s theory were, first, that the conception of an ether in which electromagnetic phenomena took place was valid and, second, that the differential equations of the electromagnetic field (Maxwell’s equations) are applicable to the dynamics of electrons. In Abraham’s view, the central question that had to be answered before any other was to what extent the mass of the electron was electromagnetic. If all the mass of the electron could be ascribed to the interaction of the electron's charge with electromagnetic fields, then one could hope to build a consistent and universal physics based on electrodynamics. Abraham’s approach was to calculate the inertia due to the self-induction of the electron as it moved through its own field and the induction due to any external field in which the electron found itself. One could compare the results thus obtained with Kaufmann’s results, and if agreement was substantial, then it could be said with some assurance that the mass of the electron was purely electromagnetic. The analysis was difficult, sophisticated, and lengthy.
In 1904 H. A. Lorentz published his second-order theory of the electrodynamics of moving bodies. Finally, in 1906, Kaufmann undertook a new set of measurements in the hopes of distinguishing between Abraham’s theory and those of Lorentz and Einstein. He reported that his experiments supported the Abraham theory. Although Kaufmann’s work was later criticized on methodological grounds and later experiments vindicated the Lorentz and Einstein predictions, opponents of the theory of relativity often cited Abraham’s theory and Kaufmann’s data as evidence against Einstein’s special theory.
When World War I started, Abraham was forced to return to Germany. During this time he worked on the theory of radio transmission. After the war, he still was not allowed back into Milan, so until 1921 he worked at Stuttgart as the professor of physics at Technische Hochschule.
After his work at Stuttgart, Abraham accepted the position of chair in Aachen; however, before he started his work there he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
He died on 16 November 1922 in Munich, Germany.
Views
Abraham’s lifework amounted to the explication of Maxwell’s theory. He exhibited a virtuosity in the handling of Maxwell’s equations like few others before him. In spite of his many original contributions, however, he was repeatedly passed over for academic appointments. This was due to the fact that he had no patience with what he considered to be silly or illogical argumentation.
Abraham's study of the structure and nature of the electron led him to the idea of the electromagnetic nature of its mass, and consequently to the dependence of the velocity of electromagnetic waves in a gravitational field. At first his ideas were supported by experiment, particularly work carried out by Wilhelm Kaufmann, but later work was to favour the theory developed by Lorentz and Einstein. Many would agree with Abraham that his version of the world was more in line with common sense. However, mathematics and physics over the 20th century has shown that the world we inhabit is at variance with "common sense" when we examine the large scale structure and the small scale structure.
Abraham himself remained unalterably opposed to Einstein’s theory throughout his life. Early (ca. 1906-1910) he not only was convinced that the data did not support the theory, but he was unwilling to accept the postulates of the theory. By 1912 Abraham admitted that he had no objection to the logic of Einstein’s theory; however, he expressed the hope that astronomical observations would contradict it, paving the way for the resurrection of the old absolute ether. But throughout, Abraham’s objections were not based on misunderstanding of the theory of relativity. He understood it better than most of his contemporaries. He was simply unwilling to accept postulates he considered contrary to his classical common sense.
Personality
Abraham had a penchant for being critical and had no hesitation in publicly chastising his colleagues, regardless of their rank or position. His sharp wit was matched by an equally sharp tongue, and as a result he remained a Privatdozent at Göttingen for nine years.
Physical Characteristics:
Abraham took ill on the way to Aachen and a brain tumour was diagnosed. He never recovered and "... just as his life was suffering, his end was full of agony."
Quotes from others about the person
Goldberg writes about Abraham:
"... he had no patience with what he considered to be silly or illogical argumentation. Abraham had a penchant for being critical and had no hesitation in publicly chastising his colleagues, regardless of their rank or position. His sharp wit was matched by an equally sharp tongue, and as a result he remained a Privatdozent at Göttingen for nine years. His consistent use of vectors was a significant factor in the rapid acceptance of vector notation in Germany. But one of the most noteworthy features of the text was that in each new edition Abraham saw fit to include not only the latest experimental work but also the latest theoretical contributions, even if these contributions were in dispute. Furthermore, he had no hesitation, after explicating both sides of a question, in using the book to argue his own point of view."
After his death, Max Born and Max von Laue wrote about him in an obituary: "He loved his absolute aether, his field equations, his rigid electron just as a youth loves his first flame, whose memory no later experience can extinguish."