Hendrik Lorentz

July 2026

Who he was

Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) was a Dutch physicist. His work on electromagnetism and the transformations that bear his name (the mathematical basis for special relativity, later fully interpreted by Einstein) earned him the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics, shared with Pieter Zeeman.

What he’s known for on this site

The Lorentz Force Law ($\mathbf{F}=q(\mathbf{E}+\mathbf{v}\times\mathbf{B})$) describes the force on a charged particle moving through electric and magnetic fields — standard, unmodified classical electromagnetism used throughout this site’s magnetism and spin-precession content.

Catalog status: Proven Systems

The Lorentz force law is proven to extraordinary precision, the same standing as Maxwell’s equations it’s built alongside.

Mentioned on this site

• Lorentz Force Law
• Paper 3 — where this session’s audit found and corrected a ~6x rounding error in applying this formula

Where this touches PBT

PBT’s papers use the Lorentz force law exactly as standard physics defines it, proposing a mechanical origin for the fields themselves rather than any change to the force law’s own form.