Haarlem, Einstein, Ehrenfest, and Solvay

Chapter 7 describes how Lorentz agreed to head the Physisch Kabinet of Teylers Foundation in Haarlem, including some background on Teylers, Haarlem, and Lorentz’s activities there. The scholarly as well as personal relationship between Lorentz and Einstein is also discussed, as well as Lorentz’s role in the first Solvay Conseil de Physique and the Solvay Institute and the search for Lorentz’s successor in Leiden; in particular, the attempts to interest Albert Einstein. Once Einstein had refused, Lorentz approached the Austrian physicist Paul Ehrenfest, whose appointment is described in detail. In 1912, Lorentz moved to Haarlem, while he continued to lecture in Leiden and attend to his national and international contacts. Eherenfest’s succession was successful, but mood swings and a sense of inadequacy increasingly made it impossible for him to withstand the professional pressures, and eventually he committed suicide in 1933.