Spouse Alice Mary Edwards Notable awards Royal Society | Name George Charles Institution Cavendish Laboratory Died December 16, 1954 | |
 | ||
Born 3 December 1864
Oakington ( 1864-12-03 ) Books Experimental elasticity, Experimental Optics: A Manual fo, Experimental Harmonic Motion: A, Experimental Physics: A Selection | ||
Institutions Cavendish Laboratory Alma mater University of Cambridge | ||
George Frederick Charles Searle FRS (3 December 1864 – 16 December 1954) was a British physicist and teacher.
Contents
Biography
Searle was born in Oakington, Cambridgeshire, England.
As a child, he knew Clerk Maxwell, whom he considered to be a humorous individual. In 1888 he began work at the Cavendish Laboratory under J.J. Thomson, and ended up working with the lab for 55 years. After World War II, he ran the undergraduate labs. His equipment, used to calibrate the Ohm, with Thompson about 1900, was still being used in the undergraduate lab.
Contributions to science
Searle is known for his work on the velocity dependence of the electromagnetic mass. This was a direct predecessor of Einstein's theory of special relativity, when several people were investigating the change of mass with velocity. Following the work of Oliver Heaviside, he defined the expression Heaviside ellipsoid, which means that the electrostatic field is contracted in the line of motion. Those developments, when modified, were ultimately important for the development of special relativity.
Personal life
Searle was married to Alice Mary Edwards. He contracted a disease at the beginning of World War I, was cured, and became a Christian Scientist. He was a keen cyclist and travelled about proselytizing.