This is a remarkable book. Arthur Yaghjian is by training and profession an electrical engineer; but he has a deep interest in fundamental questions usually reserved for physicists. Working largely in isolation he has studied the relevant papers of an enormous literature accumulated over a century. The result is a fresh and novel approach to old problems and to their solution. Physicists since Lorentz have looked at the problem of the equations of motion of a charged object primarily as a problem for the description of a fundamental particle, typically an electron. Yaghjian considers a mac- scopic object, a spherical insulator with a surface charge. was therefore not tempted to take the point limit, and he thus avoided the pitfalls that have misguided research in this field since Dirac's famous paper of 1938. Perhaps the author's greatest achievement was the discovery that one does not need to invoke quantum mechanics and the correspondence pr- ciple in order to exclude the unphysical solutions (runaway and pre-acc- eration solutions). Rather, as he discovered, the derivation of the classical equations of motion from the Maxwell-Lorentz equations is invalid when the time rate of change of the dynamical variables too large (even in the relativistic case). Therefore, solutions that show such behavior are inc- sistent consequences. The classical theory thus shown to be physically consistent by itself. It embarrassing--to say the least--that this obs- vation had not been made before.

This book takes a fresh, systematic approach to determining the equation of motion for the classical model of the electron introduced by Lorentz 130 years ago. The original derivations of Lorentz, Abraham, Poincaré, and Schott are modified and generalized for the charged insulator model of the electron to obtain an equation of motion consistent with causal solutions to the Maxwell-Lorentz equations and the equations of special relativity. The solutions to the resulting equation of motion are free of pre-acceleration and pre-deceleration. The generalized method is applied to obtain the causal solution to the equation of motion of a charge accelerating in a uniform electric field for a finite time interval. Alternative derivations of the Landau-Lifshitz approximation are given as well as necessary and sufficient conditions for the Landau-Lifshitz approximation to be an accurate solution to the exact Lorentz-Abraham-Dirac equation of motion. Binding forces and a total stress-momentum-energy tensor are derived for the charged insulator model. Appendices provide simplified derivations of the self-force and power at arbitrary velocity. In this third edition, some of the history has been made more accurate and some of the derivations have been simplified and clarified. A detailed three-vector exact solution to the Landau-Lifshitz approximate equation of motion is given for the problem of an electron traveling in a counterpropagating plane-wave laser-beam pulse. Semi-classical analyses are used to derive the conditions that determine the significance of quantum effects not included in the classical equation of motion. The book is a valuable resource for students and researchers in physics, engineering, and the history of science.

In addition to expanding and clarifying a number of sections of the first edition, it generalizes the analysis that eliminates the noncausal pre-acceleration so that it applies to removing any pre-deceleration as well. It also introduces a robust power series solution to the equation of motion that produces an extremely accurate solution to problems such as the motion of electrons in uniform magnetic fields.

It now appears that the old argument about Lorentz vs Galileo relativity is passing into history. The Lorentz symmetry may soon become obsolete itself just as the Galileo symmetry did about 1900. The tremendous successes of QED represent real progress in our quest to understand nature. The answer is not to go as most ?outsiders? but to go forward ? beyond to new ideas and equations that will match nature even better than QED does. This book shows us a new view of relativity and quantum equations. It has new equations that extend Lorentz Maxwell and Dirac.

This book examines the problems with the LD equation in flat spacetime and details its extension to curved spacetime. It compares different equivalence principles as well as vindicates some.

The Journal on Advanced Studies in Theoretical and Experimental Physics, including Related Themes from Mathematics