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Martinus J. G. Veltman: 1 Biography

Martinus J. G. Veltman is a Dutch theoretical physicist who shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics with his former student Gerardus 't Hooft for their work on particle theory. Veltman made important contributions to Yang–Mills theory and renormalization, which helped establish the modern theory of elementary particles and quantum field theory. He has had a distinguished career in physics, including professorships at Utrecht University and the University of Michigan.

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41 views3 pages

Martinus J. G. Veltman: 1 Biography

Martinus J. G. Veltman is a Dutch theoretical physicist who shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics with his former student Gerardus 't Hooft for their work on particle theory. Veltman made important contributions to Yang–Mills theory and renormalization, which helped establish the modern theory of elementary particles and quantum field theory. He has had a distinguished career in physics, including professorships at Utrecht University and the University of Michigan.

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Martinus J. G.

Veltman
Martinus Justinus Godefriedus Tini Veltman
(Dutch: [vltmn]; born June 27, 1931) is a Dutch
theoretical physicist. He shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in
physics with his former student Gerardus 't Hooft for their
work on particle theory.

Veltman was closely involved in the OPERA 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.[1]

In 1971, Gerardus 't Hooft, who was completing his


PhD under the supervision of Veltman, renormalized
YangMills theory. They showed that if the symmetries of YangMills theory were to be realized in
the spontaneously broken mode, referred to as the
Higgs mechanism, then YangMills theory can be
renormalized.[2][3] Renormalization of YangMills theory is a major achievement of twentieth century physics.

Biography

Martinus J.G. Veltman was born in Waalwijk, Netherlands on June 27, 1931. His father was the head of the
local primary school. Three of his fathers siblings were
primary school teachers. His mothers father was a contractor and also ran a caf. He was the fourth child in a
family with six children. He started studying mathemat- In 1981, Veltman left Utrecht University for the
ics and physics at Utrecht University in 1948.[1]
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.[4]
As a youth he had a great interest in radio electronics, Eventually, he shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1999
which was a dicult hobby to work on because the occu- with 't Hooft, for elucidating the quantum structure of
pying German army had conscated most of the available electroweak interactions in physics.[1] Veltman and 't
radio equipment.[1]
Hooft joined in the celebrations at Utrecht University
when the prize was awarded.

In 1955, he became an assistant to Prof. Michels of the


Van Der Waals laboratory in Amsterdam. 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.

Veltman is now retired and holds a position of Emeritus


Professor at the University of Michigan. Asteroid 9492
Veltman is named in his honor.

In 2003, Veltman published a book about particle physics


His research career advanced when he moved to Utrecht for a broad audience, entitled Facts and Mysteries in Elto work under Leon Van Hove in 1955. He nished ementary Particle Physics, published by World Scientic
his masters degree in 1956, after which he was drafted Publishing.
into military service for two years, returning in February
1959. Van Hove then hired him as a PhD student, even
though he was now 27 years old. He obtained his PhD
in theoretical physics in 1963 and became professor at
2 References
Utrecht University in 1966.[1]
In 1960, Van Hove became director of the theory division at CERN in Geneva, 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 Hlne in the Netherlands,
before moving to Geneva to live with Martinus. Hlne
followed in her fathers footsteps and in due time completed her particle physics thesis with Mary Gaillard at
Berkeley, though she now works in the nancial industry
in London.[1]

[1] Veltman, Martinus. Autobiography. Nobel Prizes and


Laureates.
[2] G. 't Hooft and M. Veltman (1972). Regularization and Renormalization of Gauge Fields. Nuclear
Physics B 44: 189219. Bibcode:1972NuPhB..44..189T.
doi:10.1016/0550-3213(72)90279-9.
[3] Regularization and Renormalization of Gauge Fields by 't
Hooft and Veltman (PDF)

In 1963/64, during an extended stay at SLAC he designed


the computer program Schoonschip for symbolic manipulation of mathematical equations, which is now considered the very rst computer algebra system.

[4] Martinus J. G. Veltman

Bibliography
Veltman, M. Perturbation Theory of Massive
Yang-Mills Fields, Utrecht Rijksuniversiteit
(Netherlands). Instituut voor Theoretische Fysica.
Paris Univ., Orsay (France).
Laboratoire de
Physique Thorique 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 (through
predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), July 1966.

External links
University of Michigan Page
Photograph, Biography and Bibliographic Resources, from the Oce of Scientic and Technical
Information, United States Department of Energy
Freeview video 'An Interview with Martinus Veltman' by the Vega Science Trust
Freeview video 'Why do we need a linear collider'

EXTERNAL LINKS

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