Year awarded: 1902
Year of discovery: 1896
Hendrik Lorentz 1853 – 1928
Pieter Zeeman 1865 – 1943
This is the splitting of spectral lines into multiple components due to the presence of a magnetic field. Seems rather esoteric but ended up being pretty important.
Hendrik Lorentz
Smart guy. Duh! At 24 he was appointed to the chair of theoretical physics at the University of Leiden. He was THE pioneer in electromagnetism but also he had far reaching influences in general relativity, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. He was one of those guys that when he talked, people listened, and moreover if a new idea was postulated, people would ask “what would Lorentz think of it?”
Pieter Zeeman
Zeeman was a student of Lorentz. And it was mostly his physical work that led to the discovery of the effect named after him, and for what the Nobel was awarded for. Not only was he appointed Extraordinary Professor at the University of Amsterdam, he was awarded Honorary Doctorates of the Universities of Göttingen, Oxford, Philadelphia, Strasbourg, Liège, Ghent, Glasgow, Brussels and Paris.
Old Zeeman here actually has a mountain named after him. When you get a mountain named after you its pretty cool in my books. It’s still awaiting a first ascent too! Good luck in trying to climb it. Here are the coordinates… Lat: 75.2°S, Long: 133.6°W On the Moon!
Impact of discovery:
One of the main applications for the Zeeman Effect was that it allowed astrophysicists to study the spectral lines of the sun and other stars giving them information about their magnetic fields. You can also think about this next time that you are laying in an MRI machine. The Zeeman effect may also be at play in the magnetic sense of birds.