Abstract

The career of the Danish physicist Ludvig V. Lorenz (1829–1891) is outlined and his contributions to optical theory between 1860 and 1891 are discussed: the elastic theory of light (1860–1861), the phenomenological wave equation (1862–1864), the electrodynamic theory of light (1867), the Lorenz-Lorentz refraction theory (1869), and the theory of scattering of plane waves by spherical particles (1890). The differences between the Lorenz and the Maxwell theories of light are pointed out, and it is argued that Lorenz's phenomenological attitude and indifference to Maxwellian theory were the main reasons why his mature works in optics exerted little influence.

© 1991 Optical Society of America

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