Martinus J.G. Veltman
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Martinus J.G. Veltman
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1999
Born: 27 June 1931, Waalwijk, the Netherlands
Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Prize motivation: "for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics."
Prize share: 1/2
Work
According to modern physics, four fundamental forces exist in nature. Electromagnetic interaction is one of these. The weak interaction - responsible, for example, for the beta decay of nuclei - is another. In the 1960s, a unified theory was formulated for these two forces: the electroweak interaction. However, certain problems still remained to be solved. In the early 1970s, Martinus Veltman and Gerardus t'Hooft formulated and tested a mathematical theory that further explained the electroweak interaction.
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