Personalities in Physics

Hendirk Antoon Lorentz 1853-1928, Netherlands, Arnhem, Leiden, Haarlem.
Received Nobelprice Physics in 1902.
Primary work: Understanding light and magnetism.

Why this person and how does this relate to today?
We both were familiar with Lorentz as a name, as we learned during our physics courses at high school and university about the Lorentz Force, Lorentz contraction and Lorentz transformation. We also vaguely were aware that he was a Dutch physicist, that he received a Nobel price and that he somehow knew Albert Einstein. As knowing all about electricity and magnetism is crucial for today’s society we became interested.

Our quest: what did we find out, when and where.
Reading Wikipedia we quickly became very intrigued. In fact we were a bit ashamed and very surprised realizing that Lorentz is today less well known than should be. In the early 1900’s he was one of the most influential scientist worldwide and had very good relationships with other very well known persons like Einstein and Maxwell. He also appeared to have been a very likable person who spoke four languages fluently. A big surprise to us was that he also was a key person in the Netherlands  in building the most important defense against the water during the last century, the afsluitdijk, the dam that transformed to Zuiderzee (sea) to the IJsselmeer (lake). The latter came about afte a devastating flood in 1916 in Waterland, just north of Amsterdam.

Arnhem, 30 June 2017
We started in Arnhem, the birth place of Lorentz. It was raining, but warm. On bike we got to the various places. He was born in Arnhem  1853, in a time where the streets in Arnhem were not paved and where the use of motorized transport and electricity was very rare.