George Francis FitzGerald (3.08.1851-21.02.1901) - an Irish physicist, a member of the Royal Irish Academy and its secretary in 1881—89. He was born in Dublin. He graduated from Trinity College in Dublin (1871), where he taught from 1877 to the end of his life (as professor from 1881).
His work was in the field of electromagnetic waves, electrolysis, the Kerr magneto-optical effect, the oscillatory discharge of a capacitor and the scattering of X-rays. In 1883 he obtained an expression for the energy radiated by a dipole. To explain the negative result of the Michelson — Morley experiment he put forward in 1892, independently of H. Lorentz, the hypothesis of the contraction of the dimensions of moving bodies in the direction of motion (the FitzGerald — Lorentz contraction).
A Fellow of the Royal Society (1883).