Professor Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, c mid-20th century

Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, 1853-1928, was a Dutch theoretical physicist. Lorentz was born in the Netherlands, son of a wealthy horticulturist. Lorentz studied at Leiden University, obtaining his PhD in 1875. He was jointly awarded the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pieter Zeeman for their discovery of the Zeeman effect. He further derived the Lorentz force, which describes the combined electric and magnetic forces acting upon a charged particle in an electromagnetic field. He married Aletta Catharina Kaiser in 1881, and together had two daughters and one son. He died on 4th February 1928, his funeral was attended by Albert Einstein and Marie Curie-Skłodowska. He is considered to be representative of the 'Second Dutch Golden Age', a period concerning the natural sciences.