Zeeman

On the night of May 24, 1865, the dam on the Dutch island of Zeeland suddenly burst, and in an instant, the ruthless sea swallowed everything. At this time, a mother lying on a small wooden boat without a rudder and oar gave birth prematurely in the sudden impact. Although she was unable to fight the waves, she did not forget the old saying in her country: "I will struggle, I will stick my head out!" She gritted her teeth and let the wind and waves bump. It was not until the next afternoon that they were rescued - and thus the great physicist Peter Zeeman came to life. Zeeman's father was a local cleric.

After finishing his high school education in 1883, Seman moved to Delft to study classical languages, as they were a prerequisite for university studies. It was here that he met Heck Kamarin Onnes, 12 years his senior, who had won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1913.

After entering Leiden University in 1885, he became a student of Onnes and Hendrik Lorenz, with whom he later shared the Nobel Prize. After Lorenz graduated in 1890, he began working as Lorenz's teaching assistant, which allowed him to participate in in-depth research on the Kerr effect, which was the basis for his future important research work. In 1893, after completing his doctoral work, he spent half a year at the Friedrich Collausch Institute in Strasbourg, on the French border. In 1895, he returned to Leiden University as a lecturer for part-time students. In the same year, he married his beloved Joanna, and they had three daughters and a son.

In 1896, three years after completing his doctorate, he disobeyed his mentor's orders and used laboratory equipment to measure the separation of spectra under the action of a strong magnetic field, and was expelled for this reason. His experimental efforts later proved extremely important, and he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1902 and became widely known for the Zeeman Effect. In 1897, he was invited to serve as a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam, and three years later, he was promoted to full professor.

Zeeman's talent for the natural sciences was evident early on. In 1893, while he was still in high school, he carefully observed and recorded the Northern Lights, which was published in the prestigious journal Nature.

Zeeman was familiar with Lorentz's electromagnetic theory and had superb experimental techniques. In 1892, he received a gold medal for careful measurement of the Kerr effect and a doctorate in 1893. When he studied the influence of magnetic fields on the spectrum, he benefited from Lorentz's guidance and Lorentz's theory, and made significant discoveries.