Short biography of Martinus J. G. Veltman, written in first person, about the Nobel prize winner for chemistry

Essay by sexybitch00High School, 11th gradeA+, November 2002

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My name is Martinus J. G. Veltman. I was born in 1831 and raised in the Dutch Netherlands. I graduated from the University of Utrecht in 1963, after receiving my Ph.D. in Physics. From 1966 to 1981, I was a professor of physics at that university. I later then joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The path to co-receiving the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics began with my research in the field of Elementary Particle Theory. Thereafter my attention was focused on the development of gauge theories. I focused on field theoretic aspects of gauge theories and their applications to elementary particle physics, radiative corrections in the Standard Model, the Higgs sector of the Standard Model and its implications for phenomenology and for new physics beyond the Standard Model, and vacuum structure of field theories.

By the 1960's I had developed a computer program that could be used to test different mathematical approaches to the calculation problems arising from the theories.

In 1969, a student only 22 years of age, joined efforts with me. Gerardus 't Hooft and I cooperated to solve this problem. By the mid-1970's, we had finally had succeeded.

Our research led to the proof of a past theory which earned its creator a Nobel Prize as well. Twenty years earlier, the prize went to Sheldon Glashow for his unified theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions. Hooft and I were able to prove that the theory was viable and made predictions possible. We accurately predicted the mass of the elementary particle which makes up protons and neutrons. Our prediction regarded the mass of the sixth "top" quark. When the top quark was discovered at Fermilab's Tevatron protonantiproton collider in 1995, its mass was exactly where our calculations said...