With his student Gerardus ‘t Hooft, Veltman received the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics for devising a mathematical system of predicting the properties of the subatomic particles that make up the universe.
Veltman was born in Waalwijk, in 1931, as the fourth of six children. His father was a primary school headmaster and placed a great emphasis on education, but during WWII the invading German army took over the school to billet soldiers – lessons were improvised, sometimes taking place in a stable. Veltman graduated from high school in 1948, and went on to university at Utrecht, but with the staff decimated by war he found lessons dull. After five years (2 years longer than normal) he passed the candidaats exam. It was only then that he came across a book on Einstein’s theory of relativity, which belatedly inspired him. He returned to his studies with renewed vigour, breaking only for military service from 1958–59. His main studies were at Utrecht under Leon Van Hove, but to develop his interest in particle physics, Veltman took extra courses in Naples and Edinburgh.
In 1960, Van Hove became director of the theory division at CERN, the European High Energy laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. Veltman followed him in 1961, where he calculated Coulomb corrections for the CERN neutrino experiment as part of his PhD thesis, which he completed in 1963. Veltman continued to work on calculations for the neutrino experiment, and began writing a computer program to perform the lengthy number-crunching. In 1966, he succeeded Van Hove as professor of physics at Utrecht, and it was there in 1969 that he teamed up with student Gerard ‘t Hooft.
At this time the fundamental theory of particle physics, termed the standard model, was incomplete. Theoretically, two fundamental forces, electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force, could be products of a single, underlying force, called the electroweak force. A mathematical foundation for the electroweak theory was lacking, however, and in 1969 Veltman and ‘t Hooft began the search for a workable solution. It was ‘t Hooft who first cracked the
mathematical problem, publishing his findings in 1971. The two men then used Veltman’s computer program to calculate the properties of the massless W and Z particles predicted by the theory. The ‘t Hooft-Veltman model allows scientists to calculate the physical properties of other subatomic particles including the top quark, which wasfirst observed in 1995.
In 1980, Veltman spent a sabbatical year at the University of Michigan. He remained, promoted to the MacArthur chair, until he retired in 1997 and returned to the town of Bilthoven in the Netherlands with his wife Anneke (they married in 1960 and have three children). Asteroid 9492 Veltman is named in his honour.
This text and the picture of the Nobel Laureate were taken from the book: "NOBELS. Nobel Laureates photographed by Peter Badge" (WILEY-VCH, 2008).
Picture: © Peter Badge/ Foundation Lindau Nobelprizewinners
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