University of Amsterdam: Zeeman Lab becomes EPS Historic Site

This makes the Zeeman Lab the fourth EPS Historic Site in the Netherlands, after the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory in Leiden, the NatLab in Eindhoven and Sonnenborgh in Utrecht. The EPS awards the Historic Site predicate to sites that have contributed in an extraordinary way to physics.

The Zeeman Lab, on the Plantage Muidergracht 4 in Amsterdam, was opened in 1923 and dedicated to experiments performed by Nobel laureate Pieter Zeeman. Nowadays it serves as a residential building, the Lab being transformed into several apartments. The unveiling was originally planned for 2021, the 100th anniversary of the Netherlands’ Physical Society (NNV), but due to corona was postponed until 2022.


The day was opened by Guido Bacciagaluppi, Chair of the History Section of the NNV, after which historian of physics Anne Kox talked about Zeeman and his work and a Zeeman legacy video, introduced by Klaasjan van Druten, was shown. The video can be watched below:

Petra Rudolf spoke about the EPS Historic Sites programme, and then outside unveiled the plaque and read the text. One of the current residents of the Lab invited the party inside for a look, after which the day ended with a toast to the new Historic Site.