Relativistic Dynamics of a Charged Sphere

Fritz Rohrlich, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Syracuse University This reexamination of the classical model of the electron, introduced by H. A. Lorentz more than 100 years ago, serves as both a review of the subject and as a context for presenting new material. The new material includes the determination and elimination of the noncausal behavior in the original equation of motion, and the derivation of the binding forces and total stress-momentum-energy tensor for a charged insulator moving with arbitrary velocity. The final equations of motion are given in a number of different formats to allow them to be readily used by physicists, engineers, and mathematicians.