| In 1896 young physicist Pieter Zeeman was fired for carrying out an experiment against the wishes of his laboratory supervisor. Despite the consequences, the experiment led to a remarkable discovery that changed Zeeman’s life.
The experiment involved measuring the light emitted by elements placed in a powerful magnetic field. When he did this, Zeeman discovered that the spectral lines were split by the field. In 1902, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for this discovery which is now known as the Zeeman effect. |  |