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Pieter Zeeman (; 25 May 1865 – 9 October 1943) was a Dutch
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
who shared the 1902
Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
in Physics with
Hendrik Lorentz Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (; 18 July 1853 – 4 February 1928) was a Dutch physicist who shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pieter Zeeman for the discovery and theoretical explanation of the Zeeman effect. He also derived the Lorentz t ...
for his discovery of the
Zeeman effect The Zeeman effect (; ) is the effect of splitting of a spectral line into several components in the presence of a static magnetic field. It is named after the Dutch physicist Pieter Zeeman, who discovered it in 1896 and received a Nobel prize ...
.


Childhood and youth

Pieter Zeeman was born in
Zonnemaire Zonnemaire is a village in the Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of Schouwen-Duiveland in the Provinces of the Netherlands, Dutch province of Zeeland. It lies about southwest of Hellevoetsluis. In 2021, Zonnemaire had a population o ...
, a small town on the island of
Schouwen-Duiveland Schouwen-Duiveland () is a municipality and an island in the southwestern Netherlands province of Zeeland. The municipality has 33,737 inhabitants (1 January 2016) and covers an area of (of which is water). The northside of the island has two fi ...
, Netherlands, the son of Rev Catharinus Forandinus Zeeman, a minister of the
Dutch Reformed Church The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...
, and his wife, Willemina Worst. Pieter became interested in physics at an early age. In 1883, the
aurora borealis An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of br ...
happened to be visible in the Netherlands. Zeeman, then a student at the high school in
Zierikzee Zierikzee () is a small city in the southwest Netherlands, 50 km southwest of Rotterdam. It is situated in the municipality of Schouwen-Duiveland, Zeeland. The city hall of Schouwen-Duiveland is located in Zierikzee, its largest city. Zierikze ...
, made a drawing and description of the phenomenon and submitted it to
Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
, where it was published. The editor praised "the careful observations of Professor Zeeman from his observatory in Zonnemaire". After finishing high school in 1883, Zeeman went to
Delft Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...
for supplementary education in
classical language A classical language is any language with an independent literary tradition and a large and ancient body of written literature. Classical languages are typically dead languages, or show a high degree of diglossia, as the spoken varieties of the ...
s, then a requirement for admission to University. He stayed at the home of Dr J.W. Lely, co-principal of the gymnasium and brother of
Cornelis Lely Cornelis Lely (; 23 September 1854 – 22 January 1929) was a Dutch politician of the Liberal Union (LU) and civil engineer. He oversaw the passage of an act of parliament authorising construction of the Zuiderzee Works, a huge project – desi ...
, who was responsible for the concept and realization of the
Zuiderzee Works The Zuiderzee Works ( nl, Zuiderzeewerken) is a man-made system of dams and dikes, land reclamation and water drainage work, in total the largest hydraulic engineering project undertaken by the Netherlands during the twentieth century. The proje ...
. While in Delft, he first met
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (21 September 1853 – 21 February 1926) was a Dutch physicist and Nobel laureate. He exploited the Hampson–Linde cycle to investigate how materials behave when cooled to nearly absolute zero and later to liquefy helium f ...
, who was to become his thesis adviser.


Education and early career

After Zeeman passed the qualification exams in 1885, he studied physics at the
University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...
under Kamerlingh Onnes and
Hendrik Lorentz Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (; 18 July 1853 – 4 February 1928) was a Dutch physicist who shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pieter Zeeman for the discovery and theoretical explanation of the Zeeman effect. He also derived the Lorentz t ...
. In 1890, even before finishing his thesis, he became Lorentz's assistant. This allowed him to participate in a research programme on the
Kerr effect The Kerr effect, also called the quadratic electro-optic (QEO) effect, is a change in the refractive index of a material in response to an applied electric field. The Kerr effect is distinct from the Pockels effect in that the induced index chang ...
. In 1893 he submitted his doctoral thesis on the Kerr effect, the reflection of
polarized light Polarization (also polarisation) is a property applying to transverse waves that specifies the geometrical orientation of the oscillations. In a transverse wave, the direction of the oscillation is perpendicular to the direction of motion of the ...
on a magnetized surface. After obtaining his doctorate he went for half a year to Friedrich Kohlrausch's institute in
Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...
. In 1895, after returning from Strasbourg, Zeeman became
Privatdozent ''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualific ...
in mathematics and physics in
Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...
. The same year he married Johanna Elisabeth Lebret (1873–1962); they had three daughters and one son. In 1896, shortly before moving from Leiden to Amsterdam, he measured the splitting of
spectral line A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to iden ...
s by a strong magnetic field, a discovery now known as the
Zeeman effect The Zeeman effect (; ) is the effect of splitting of a spectral line into several components in the presence of a static magnetic field. It is named after the Dutch physicist Pieter Zeeman, who discovered it in 1896 and received a Nobel prize ...
, for which he won the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics. This research involved an investigation of the effect of
magnetic field A magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and to ...
s on a
light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 tera ...
source. He discovered that a spectral line is split into several components in the presence of a magnetic field. Lorentz first heard about Zeeman's observations on Saturday 31 October 1896 at the meeting of the
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...
in
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
, where these results were communicated by Kamerlingh Onnes. The next Monday, Lorentz called Zeeman into his office and presented him with an explanation of his observations, based on Lorentz's theory of
electromagnetic radiation In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic field, electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, inf ...
. The importance of Zeeman's discovery soon became apparent. It confirmed Lorentz's prediction about the polarization of light emitted in the presence of a magnetic field. Thanks to Zeeman's work it became clear that the oscillating particles that according to Lorentz were the source of light emission were negatively charged, and were a thousandfold lighter than the hydrogen atom. This conclusion was reached well before
J. J. Thomson Sir Joseph John Thomson (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was a British physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, credited with the discovery of the electron, the first subatomic particle to be discovered. In 1897, Thomson showed that ...
's discovery of the
electron The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no kn ...
. The Zeeman effect thus became an important tool for elucidating the structure of the atom.


Professor in Amsterdam

Shortly after his discovery, Zeeman was offered a position as
lecturer Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...
in
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
, where he started to work in autumn of 1896. In 1900, this was followed by his promotion to professor of physics at the
University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...
. In 1902, together with his former mentor Lorentz, he received the Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery of the Zeeman effect. Five years later, in 1908, he succeeded Van der Waals as full professor and Director of the Physics Institute in Amsterdam. In 1918 he published "Some experiments on gravitation: The ratio of mass to weight for crystals and radioactive substances" in the ''Proceedings of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen,'' experimentally confirming the
equivalence principle In the theory of general relativity, the equivalence principle is the equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass, and Albert Einstein's observation that the gravitational "force" as experienced locally while standing on a massive body (suc ...
with regard to gravitational and inertial mass. A new laboratory built in Amsterdam in 1923 was renamed the Zeeman Laboratory in 1940. This new facility allowed Zeeman to pursue refined investigation of the Zeeman effect. For the remainder of his career he remained interested in research in
magneto-optic effect A magneto-optic effect is any one of a number of phenomena in which an electromagnetic wave propagates through a medium that has been altered by the presence of a quasistatic magnetic field. In such a medium, which is also called gyrotropic or g ...
s. He also investigated the propagation of light in moving media. This subject became the focus of a renewed interest because of
special relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates: # The laws o ...
, and enjoyed a keen interest from Lorentz and
Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
. Later in his career he became interested in
mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is use ...
.


Later years

In 1898 Zeeman was elected to membership of the
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...
in Amsterdam, and he served as its secretary from 1912 to 1920. He won the
Henry Draper Medal The Henry Draper Medal is awarded every 4 years by the United States National Academy of Sciences "for investigations in astrophysics, astronomical physics". Named after Henry Draper, the medal is awarded with a gift of USD $15,000. The medal was ...
in 1921, and several other awards and
Honorary degree An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...
s. Zeeman was elected a Foreign member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1921. He retired as a professor in 1935. Zeeman died on 9 October 1943 in Amsterdam, and was buried in
Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...
.


Awards and honors

Zeeman received the following awards for his contributions. *
Nobel Prize for 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 " ...
(1902) *
Matteucci Medal The Matteucci Medal is an Italian award for physicists, named after Carlo Matteucci from Forlì. It was established to award physicists for their fundamental contributions. Under an Italian Royal Decree dated July 10, 1870, the Italian Society of S ...
(1912) * Elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1921 *
Henry Draper Medal The Henry Draper Medal is awarded every 4 years by the United States National Academy of Sciences "for investigations in astrophysics, astronomical physics". Named after Henry Draper, the medal is awarded with a gift of USD $15,000. The medal was ...
from the
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
(1921) *
Rumford Medal The Rumford Medal is an award bestowed by Britain's Royal Society every alternating year for "an outstandingly important recent discovery in the field of thermal or optical properties of matter made by a scientist working in Europe". First awar ...
(1922) *
Franklin Medal The Franklin Medal was a science award presented from 1915 until 1997 by the Franklin Institute located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. It was founded in 1914 by Samuel Insull Samuel Insull (November 11, 1859 – July 16, 1938) was a Bri ...
(1925) The crater Zeeman on the
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
is named in his honour.


See also

* Atom and Atomic Theory *
Bohr–Sommerfeld model The Bohr–Sommerfeld model (also known as the Sommerfeld model or Bohr–Sommerfeld theory) was an extension of the Bohr model to allow elliptical orbits of electrons around an atomic nucleus. Bohr–Sommerfeld theory is named after Danish ph ...
* Fresnel drag coefficient * Light-dragging effects


References


External links

* * , available at Gallica. The "Address" of Gabriel Bertrand of December 20, 1943 at the French Academy: he gives biographical sketches of the lives of recently deceased members, including Pieter Zeeman,
David Hilbert David Hilbert (; ; 23 January 1862 – 14 February 1943) was a German mathematician, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many a ...
and Georges Giraud. * Albert van Helde
''Pieter Zeeman 1865 – 1943''
In: K. van Berkel, A. van Helden and L. Palm ed., A History of Science in The Netherlands. Survey, Themes and Reference (Leiden: Brill, 1999) 606 - 608.
Biography
at the Nobel e-museum an
Nobel Lecture
* * P.F.A. Klinkenberg
''Zeeman, Pieter (1865-1943)''
in Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland. * Biography o

at the National library of the Netherlands. * Anne J. Kox

Inaugural lecture (1999). * Pim de Bie

Gravesite of Pieter Zeeman

Bijzondere collecties Leiden.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zeeman, Pieter 1865 births 1943 deaths 20th-century Dutch physicists 19th-century Dutch physicists Nobel laureates in Physics Dutch Nobel laureates Leiden University alumni Academic staff of Leiden University Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam People from Zonnemaire Quantum physicists Foreign Members of the Royal Society Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the Royal Academy of Belgium Experimental physicists Spectroscopists Recipients of the Matteucci Medal