Aldert van der Ziel (12 December 1910,

Zandeweer Zandeweer is a village in Het Hogeland municipality in the Netherlands, Dutch provinces of the Netherlands, province of Groningen (province), Groningen. It had a population of around 475 in January 2017.Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

), was a Dutch physicist who studied

electronic noise In electronics, noise is an unwanted disturbance in an electrical signal. Noise generated by electronic devices varies greatly as it is produced by several different effects. In particular, noise is inherent in physics, and central to the ...

processes in materials such as

semiconductors A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...

and metals.

Biography

Aldert van der Ziel was a pioneering researcher into the phenomenon of

flicker noise Flicker noise is a type of electronic noise with a 1/''f'' power spectral density. It is therefore often referred to as 1/''f'' noise or pink noise, though these terms have wider definitions. It occurs in almost all electronic devices and can show ...

in physical electronics. He published 15 books and more than 500 scientific papers. He was also a writer on Christianity, particularly the relationship between science and religion. Van der Ziel belonged to a conservative

Lutheran church Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

. Van der Ziel obtained a Ph.D. in 1934 from the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen (city), Groningen in ...

. He worked at

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...

Eindhoven Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022,Vancouver, British Columbia Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

, Canada and moved to the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

in 1950 to become professor of electrical engineering. He was also associated, later, with the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

at Gainesville. Aldert van der Ziel was elected in 1978 as a member of

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

in Electronics, Communication & Information Systems Engineering for contributions to the study of

noise Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference arise ...

in electron devices and contributions to graduate education. The

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

has an award named after Aldert van der Ziel, which is given during the biennial ''International Semiconductor Device Research Symposium'' (ISDRS) sponsored by the

IEEE Electron Devices Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

, for "a distinguished career in education and research". Past recipients are Lester Eastmann,

Herbert Kroemer Herbert Kroemer (; born August 25, 1928) is a German-American physicist who, along with Zhores Alferov, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 for "developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and opto-electronics". Kroemer ...

(

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

winner), Michael Shur, Marvin H. White, James D. Plummer,

Ben Streetman Ben G. Streetman is the former Dean of the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He earned a Ph.D in electrical engineering from Texas in 1966, and became a professor there in 1982. He founded the university's Microe ...

Mark Lundstrom Mark S. Lundstrom is an American electrical engineering researcher, educator, and author. He is known for contributions to the theory, modeling, and understanding of semiconductor devices, especially nanoscale transistors, and as the creator of th ...

and Tsu-Jae King Liu.

Awards

* 1956:

IEEE Fellow As of 2019, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has 5,082 members designated Fellow, each of whom is associated with one of the 41 societies under the IEEE. The Fellow grade of membership is the highest level of membershi ...

* 1975: Honorary doctorate, University Paul Sabatier, Toulouse * 1978: National Academy of Engineering * 1980:

IEEE Education Medal The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

* 1981: Honorary doctorate,

University of Eindhoven The Eindhoven University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven), abbr. TU/e, is a public technical university in the Netherlands, located in the city of Eindhoven. In 2020–21, around 14,000 students were enrolled in its BSc an ...

Bibliography

Books

* ''Noise'' (Prentice-Hall electrical engineering series), Aldert Van der Ziel, Publ. Prentice-Hall (1954) * ''Solid State Physical Electronics'' 2nd Ed, Aldert Van der Ziel, Publ. Prentice-Hall (1968) * ''Noise in Measurements'', Aldert Van Der Ziel, Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Inc (1976) * ''Nonlinear Electronic Circuits'', Aldert Van Der Ziel, Publ. John Wiley & Sons Inc (1977) * ''Noise in Solid State Devices and Circuits'', Aldert Van Der Ziel, Publ. Wiley-Interscience (1986) * ''The Natural Sciences and the Christian Message'', Aldert Van der Ziel, Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated (1976)

Selected papers

* * : One of the described topics quantum 1/f noise is now controversial.

References

External links

A creationist viewpoint
on van der Ziel's beliefs {{DEFAULTSORT:Ziel, Aldert Van Der 1910 births 1991 deaths 20th-century Dutch physicists Fellow Members of the IEEE Evangelical Lutheran Church Christians from the Netherlands Christian writers People from Eemsmond University of Groningen alumni Van Der Ziel, Aldert 20th-century Lutherans