[Evans] They really express relations about space and time

[Ritz] ".....the field never plays a role in pure ether. In fact, we can only determine the field's magnitude and direction by placing a body and observing the mechanical forces that it feels or rather its motions and those of the ions in its near vicinity, motions which are indicated by luminous, thermal, chemical, etc. phenomena. Therefore we know only F (force), and that only in points of x, y, z where there is electrified matter, and we deduce E and H by reasoning ... . This is to say that it will suffice, in all cases, to know the formula that gives F as the result of elementary actions exerted by an element of charge on another element of charge, and that this second representation is, with regard to the facts, exactly equivalent to the first one, which is based on the field and its partial differential equations which only play a purely mathematical role. We can if we please, dispense completely with the notions of electric and magnetic fields."(161)

Maxwell's field equations, which are based on the idea of a solid ether, admit time reversible solutions. Ritz held that electromagnetic phenomena are, in general, irreversible because of radiation.(164)

He claimed that advanced potentials (future states affecting the present, i.e. supplying energy to run present processes) have no place in reality.(164) (In a later paper he stated that the Rayleigh-Jeans ultraviolet catastrophe derived from this departure from reality. Ritz and Einstein argued this issue, along with the issue of the origin of the second law of thermodynamics in 1908-1909, culminating in a joint (1909) paper (RE) in which each author stated his opinion. This joint article was Ritz's last published journal article.)

Ritz says that Lorentz chose to reject the idea of electromagnetic waves converging on a charge by admitting that charged elements are the only points of origin for disturbances.(170)

[Ritz] "...to eliminate the physically impossible solutions [of Maxwell's equations] it only requires adoption a priori of the formulae for retarded potentials, which distinguish the elementary actions as in the classical theories, and to prove that they satisfy the equations is to say that they can replace them completely, whereas the inverse is not the case." (171)

[Ritz] "...it is the formulae of elementary actions, and not the system of partial differential equations, which is the complete and exact expression of Lorentz's theory." (172)

[Ritz] "..energy can be expressed in the form of an integral extended over all space. ... Maxwell admits...that each element of volume is effectively the seat of a quantity of energy."(172)

"The [Poynting] theorem states itself elegantly in considering the energy as being comprised of an indestructible fluid which moves parallel to the radiant vector."(173)

[Evans] The problem with this picture, as pointed out by Ritz, is that the extended integral throughout space can be defined in an infinite number of ways. The localization of energy is undetermined. Similarly, the flux of energy (the Poynting Theorem) can be modified in an arbitrary way. Ritz summarizes this situation by stating that

[Ritz] "The localization of energy must therefore be attributed to a number of logically useless (and perhaps harmful) conceptions in the Maxwell Lorentz theory."(176,177)

[Evans] This difficulty carries through into the definition of photon in the later quantum theories.

[Ritz] "...as long as we have not introduced the hypothesis of retarded potentials, a continuous portion of the energy, from converging waves coming from infinity, remains just as possible as the lost energy that we observe in reality. If an engine could perpetually draw energy from ether solely, independently of the presence of material bodies, it could have perpetual motion."

[Evans] The most telling criticism by Ritz appears on p. 179.

[Ritz] "In the most general case of electromagnetic radiation, conservation of energy is no longer a law, but a convention."(179)

[Ritz] "We can again say that the condition of stability of a continuous medium, elastic or otherwise, is always such that the energy is minimum when deformation is zero; here, [where the gravitational force is equal to zero] it is maximum; the gravitational field would be in unstable equilibrium at infinity and wherever the force is zero. ... The notion of field doesn't seem applicable to gravitation; it shouldn't therefore be an issue to consider as a general base for the explanation of physical phenomena." ..."On the contrary, the law of elementary action which results from Lorentz's theory, if we replace electric charges by masses, can, as in the similar laws of Weber, Gauss, etc., replace the classical law of gravitation..." (180)

This is mathematics. The nuts and bolts aren't here. In a later article on gravitation (R2) he hypothesized that spinning atomic charges produce gravity through high order residuals of magnetic interactions. (Ritz was proposing spinning charges in 1908. He does mention Lorentz's idea on the subject.

[Ritz] "Zöllner's explanation, adopted by Lorentz, is as we know, that the attraction of two electrical charges of opposite sign, is slightly less than the repulsion of two charges of like sign and of the same absolute value. This explanation destroys the unity of the electric field, and is thus applicable only to elementary actions."(181)

[Evans] He supports this objection with reference to the experiment, on the pressure of light on material in [the best available] vacuum.(184)

[Ritz] "If we are content with the forces exerted by ions on one another existing without the intervention of an intermediate, such as ether, then the finite speed of propagation leads to the lack of simultaneity and to the inequality of actions of ions on one another when they are separated ...." (185)

[Ritz] "We...use Poincaré's example, the recoil of an artillery piece and the force experienced by a body that transmits a wave of radiant energy in a certain direction are absolutely analogous, which is not the case when, instead of using this model, we consider the energy to be propagated (the ether theory)."(185)

[Evans] About fifty years or more later Jackson ... summarized the way in which this [radiative] recoil was introduced in the [1903-1904] Abraham-Lorentz equation of motion... . it was not present in the original Lorentz theory ... . This is a problematical equation with unphysical runaway solutions. It is not rigorous or fundamental ...

Ritz is a currently recognized, widely referenced, authority on vibrations in solids.

[Evans] The most serious difficulty of all is that the transversal view of radiation propagating in ether violates the third law of Newton, because this view is based on the Maxwell-Lorentz theory without the reaction corrections of Abraham and Lorentz. ... Ritz describes clearly ... that an ether supporting only transverse propagation is mechanically unstable because it has zero resistance to compression. [He] concludes that such an ether does not exist, and follows Schwarzschild in showing that the Maxwell-Lorentz theory is equivalent in all respects to DELAYED action at a distance. Action and reaction are not equal and instantaneously opposite in the Maxwell-Lorentz theory.

[Evans] Ritz rejects the transversality condition in the pure ether, or vacuum, as early as 1908. ... Nearly ninety years later, this question is still being discussed, despite the fact that there is so much accumulated evidence to show that the transversality condition is a false imposition on a linear, incomplete, theory, Maxwell Lorentz electrodynamics.

Ritz's theory employed Galilean relativity and offered a rationale for how the magnitudes of electrodynamic forces could be functions of relative velocities, between force carrying particles and electrical charges rather than masses being relativistically variable.

On Ritz's interpretation of Kaufmann's experiments on magnetic and electrical bending of fast electrons (beta rays):

[Ritz] "...instead of a mass becoming infinite when we approach the speed of light, we would have forces that are annulled because they propagate precisely with the velocity of the mobile electron." (194)

[Ritz] "Kaufmann's experiments can equally be interpreted by modifying the existing laws of Electrodynamics in a manner that eliminates absolute motion and by making the electrodynamic mass constant.(196)