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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Poincaré's role in the Crémieu-Pender controversy over electric convection

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Summary In the course of 1901, V. Cremieu published the results of some experiments carried out to test the magnetic effects of electric convection currents. According to Cremieu, his experiments had proved that convection currents had no magnetic effects and consequently they were not equivalent to conduction currents, that is they were not ‘real’ electric currents. These negative results conflicted with those of well-known experiments carried out by other researchers, in particular with Rowland's experiments, and with Maxwell's, Hertz's and Lorentz's theories, which was more shocking. The publication of Cremieu's experiments raised a controversy which involved directly or indirectly some leading French and British physicists, and led Rowland together with his student Pender to re-perform his experiments. Pender's results confirmed those preiously obtained by Rowland, in striking conflict with those of Cremieu. The importance of Cremieu's experiments was stressed by Poincare in some of his publications, ...