Pieter Zeeman Quotes
I should point out, however, that at first some difficulty was experienced in observing the phenomena predicted by the theory, owing to the extreme smallness of the variations in the period of oscillation.
Zeeman, Pieter. "Light Radiation in a Magnetic Field." Nobel Lectures: Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, 1967, pp. 33-44.
This was one of the great scientific predictions of how science would develop.
This quotation is used by some of those demonstrating that “Creation Science” is not science, as it is a set of facts, with no experimental verification.
He was addressing the misunderstanding that many laypeople and most anti-evolutionists have that if Evolution is only a theory why put so much stock in it. The layman often uses the word “theory” in opposition to “fact.” But to the scientist theories are of different types—those that are as of yet speculation and those for which a strong body of evidence exists. Evolution, like Relativity, has a huge amount of evidence supporting it. Yet in time every good scientist knows that all these proven theories will be modified with new knowledge. Relativity has been demonstrated as having errors initially by Einstein himself. The essence of these things are true although elements change. The early law of gravity is the best example. We know that it is wrong in many, circumstances—in space for example. But it, none the less, is fundamental to much analysis and with our much more sophisticated understanding of it we still talk of the “Law” of gravity even though we realize that it is not quite correct in all circumstances.
Pieter Zeeman was a Dutch physicist who shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Hendrik Lorentz for his discovery of the Zeeman effect.
