Tini Veltman
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Martinus Justinus Godefriedus "Tini" Veltman (; 27 June 1931 – 4 January 2021) was a Dutch theoretical physicist. He shared the 1999
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 " ...
with his former PhD student Gerardus 't Hooft for their work on particle theory.


Biography

Martinus Justinus Godefriedus Veltman was born in
Waalwijk Waalwijk () is a municipality and a city in the southern Netherlands. It had a population of in and is located near the motorways A59 and N261. The villages of Capelle, Vrijhoeve-Capelle, Sprang (the former municipality of Sprang-Capelle) and W ...
, Netherlands, on 27 June 1931. His father was the head of the local primary school. Three of his father's siblings were primary school teachers. His mother's father was a contractor and also ran a café. He was the fourth child in a family with six children. He started studying mathematics and physics at
Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...
in 1948. As a youth he had a great interest in radio electronics, which was a difficult hobby to work on because the occupying German army had confiscated most of the available radio equipment. In 1955, he became an assistant to Prof. Michels of the Van Der Waals laboratory 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 ...
. Michels was an experimental physicist, working in high pressure physics. His primary task was the upkeep of a large library collection and occasional lecture preparations for Michels. His research career advanced when he moved to
Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
to work under
Léon Van Hove Léon Charles Prudent Van Hove (10 February 1924 – 2 September 1990) was a Belgian physicist and a Director General of CERN. He developed a scientific career spanning mathematics, solid state physics, elementary particle and nuclear physics t ...
in 1955. He received his
MSc MSC may refer to: Computers * Message Sequence Chart * Microelectronics Support Centre of UK Rutherford Appleton Laboratory * MIDI Show Control * MSC Malaysia (formerly known as Multimedia Super Corridor) * USB mass storage device class (USB MSC ...
degree in 1956, after which he was drafted into military service for two years, returning in February 1959. Van Hove then hired him as a doctoral researcher. He obtained his
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
degree in theoretical physics in 1963 and became professor at Utrecht University in 1966. In 1960, Van Hove became director of the theory division at
CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...
in
Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
, Switzerland, the European High Energy laboratory. Veltman followed him there in 1961. Meanwhile, in 1960, he married his wife Anneke, who gave birth to their daughter Hélène in the Netherlands, before moving to Geneva to live with Martinus. Hélène followed in her father's footsteps and in due time completed her particle physics thesis with
Mary Gaillard Mary Katharine Gaillard (born April 1, 1939) is an American theoretical physicist. Her focus is on particle physics. She is a professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, a member of the Berkeley Center for Theore ...
at
Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...
, though she now works in the financial industry in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. In 1963/64, during an extended stay at SLAC he designed the computer program
Schoonschip Schoonschip was one of the first computer algebra systems, developed in 1963 by Martinus J. G. Veltman, for use in particle physics. "Schoonschip" refers to the Dutch expression "schoon schip maken": to make a clean sweep, to clean/clear things up ...
for symbolic manipulation of mathematical equations, which is now considered the very first
computer algebra system A computer algebra system (CAS) or symbolic algebra system (SAS) is any mathematical software with the ability to manipulate mathematical expressions in a way similar to the traditional manual computations of mathematicians and scientists. The de ...
. Veltman was closely involved in the 1963 CERN neutrino experiment, analyzing images as they were generated by the detectors. When no spectacular events came out, enthusiasm waned, and after a while Veltman and Bernardini were the only ones analyzing the images. As a result, Veltman became the spokesman for the group at the Brookhaven Conference in 1963. In 1971, Gerardus 't Hooft, who was completing his PhD under the supervision of Veltman,
renormalized Renormalization is a collection of techniques in quantum field theory, the statistical mechanics of fields, and the theory of self-similarity, self-similar geometric structures, that are used to treat infinity, infinities arising in calculated ...
Yang–Mills theory In mathematical physics, Yang–Mills theory is a gauge theory based on a special unitary group SU(''N''), or more generally any compact, reductive Lie algebra. Yang–Mills theory seeks to describe the behavior of elementary particles using th ...
. They showed that if the symmetries of Yang–Mills theory were to be realized in the
spontaneously broken Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a spontaneous process of symmetry breaking, by which a physical system in a symmetric state spontaneously ends up in an asymmetric state. In particular, it can describe systems where the equations of motion or the ...
mode, referred to as the
Higgs mechanism In the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is essential to explain the generation mechanism of the property "mass" for gauge bosons. Without the Higgs mechanism, all bosons (one of the two classes of particles, the other bein ...
, then Yang–Mills theory can be renormalized. Renormalization of Yang–Mills theory is a major achievement of twentieth century physics. In 1980, Veltman became member 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 1981, Veltman left
Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...
for the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, from where he retired in 1996. He subsequently moved back to the Netherlands. Eventually, he shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1999 with 't Hooft, "for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics". Veltman and 't Hooft joined in the celebrations at
Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...
when the prize was awarded. In 2003, Veltman published a book about particle physics for a broad audience, entitled ''Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics''. On 4 January 2021, Veltman died in his home in
Bilthoven Bilthoven is a village in the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is a part of the municipality of De Bilt. It has a railway station with connections to Utrecht, Amersfoort and Baarn. It is home to the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health an ...
, the Netherlands. Asteroid
9492 Veltman Year 949 (Roman numerals, CMXLIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Arab-Byzantine wars#Byzantine resurgence, 863-11th century, Arab-Byz ...
is named in his honor.


See also

*
Chiral anomaly In theoretical physics, a chiral anomaly is the anomalous nonconservation of a chiral current. In everyday terms, it is equivalent to a sealed box that contained equal numbers of left and right-handed bolts, but when opened was found to have more ...
*
Pauli–Villars regularization __NOTOC__ In theoretical physics, Pauli–Villars regularization (P–V) is a procedure that isolates divergent terms from finite parts in loop calculations in field theory in order to renormalize the theory. Wolfgang Pauli and Felix Villars pu ...


Bibliography

*Veltman, M
"Perturbation Theory of Massive Yang-Mills Fields"
Utrecht Rijksuniversiteit (Netherlands). Instituut voor Theoretische Fysica. Paris Univ., Orsay (France). Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Hautes Energies, (Aug. 1968). *Veltman, M. & J. Yellin
"Some Comments on the Decays of eta (550)"
Brookhaven National Laboratory,
United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...
(through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), July 1966. *Veltman, M. ''Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics'', World Scientific Publishing, 2003. .


References


External links

* including the Nobel Lecture 8 December 1999 ''From Weak Interactions to Gravitation''
University of Michigan Page

Freeview video 'An Interview with Martinus Veltman' by the Vega Science Trust


* {{DEFAULTSORT:Veltman, Martinus J. G. 1931 births 2021 deaths 20th-century Dutch physicists Particle physicists Theoretical physicists Dutch Nobel laureates Nobel laureates in Physics People associated with CERN Commanders of the Order of the Netherlands Lion Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences University of Michigan faculty Utrecht University alumni Utrecht University faculty People from Waalwijk Scientists from Michigan 20th-century American scientists 21st-century Dutch physicists