The Anomalous Zeeman Effect: Zeeman and Preston

By Barbara Dooley

Throughout this article, I will begin by describing the Zeeman Effect, as well as the history of the discovery of the effect, and different people, notably Thomas Preston, who contributed greatly to the effect and discovered the Anomalous Zeeman Effect. In this article, I will be addressing the scientific side of the effect, rather than the mathematical, so for readers who are seeking a mathematical approach, I am afraid that this is not the article for you.

Some of you may have heard of Zeeman, but may not know what he is famous for and how he stumbled upon this discovery. Well, fear not, for hopefully all your questions are going to be answered. Pieter Zeeman was born in Zonnemaire, a small town in the Netherlands, on 25t​h​ May 1865. He studied Physics at the University of Leiden under Hendrik Lorentz, who will be mentioned in more depth later on.

Pieter Zeeman

Firstly, before I move onto Zeeman’s findings, I will briefly describe what a spectroscope is and how it works. A spectroscope is an instrument that allows scientists to determine the chemical makeup of a visible source of light. Spectroscopes may also operate over a wide range of non-optical wavelengths, from gamma rays and X-rays into the far infrared. Light is focused into a thin beam of parallel rays by a lense, then passed through a prism or diffraction grating that separates the light into a frequency spectrum, ranging from the smaller frequency to the bigger frequency wavelengths.

In 1896, Zeeman measured the splitting of spectral lines by a strong magnetic field. However, at the time, he did not realize that the lines were splitting, but instead believed that they simply became broader when a strong magnetic field was formed near the light source under which the spectral lines were observed. He also observed polarisation effects that indicated that the line was split in a manner consistent with the electron theory of Lorentz (which posited that in matter there are charged particles, electrons, that conduct electric current and whose oscillations give rise to light), but he did not realize this until later on.

 splitting of the spectral lime

He decided to continue the discovery and under closer inspection found that the spectral lines separated into either doublets or triplets when a strong magnetic force was placed near.

But Zeeman got no further in his discovery. In 1897, he was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam and the disruption to his work caused by the move from Leiden was only increased by the inferior facilities he was forced to work with. He now had a smaller spectroscope, which lacked the sophistication and accuracy of his previous one. He printed thirty photographs of the splitting of the lines, but the quality of the photos was so bad that only one was deemed suitable.

However, around this time, an Irishman named Thomas Preston had heard of Zeeman’s discovery and wanted to investigate it in more depth. He decided to conduct the exact

experiment which Zeeman had done in 1896 in order to determine the accuracy of his theory.

First, before I launch into another description, now some background of Preston’s life. Preston was born on 23r​d​ May 1860 in County Armagh. He graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1885 in Mathematics and Experimental Science.

Preston learnt of the Zeeman Effect through​ ​G.F Fitzgerald, a fellow scientist at Trinity. He obtained a spectroscope from the Royal University and a strong electro-magnet, also from the Royal University. (Later he ordered his own magnet which was constructed to his own special design by the Dublin manufacturer Yeates and Co. This is probably why he remained in debt until his untimely death). Please note that these instruments were, in fact, of better quality and standard than the apparatus used in Zeeman’s conduction of the experiment. Preston was also offered use of the laboratories at the Royal University, where he installed his apparatus.

Thomas Preston

Thus, in December 1897, he presented his experimental results, stating that he had indeed observed the triplet nature of line splitting as reported by Zeeman. However, due to his higher quality apparatus, he had also reported that he had observed four-fold and six-fold splitting for two significant lines respectively. His photographs were of much higher quality than Zeeman’s and the four fold and six fold splitting of the lines was evident in these photos.

However, there was a catch. As this latter observation was something never seen before, Preston admitted that both these splits did not follow any simple law. A more powerful magnet was needed if he was to pursue his declared aim of seeking a law governing the magnetic splittings. After numerous months of trying to produce a hypothesis, Preston came up with his rule, now known as Preston’s rule. This rule states that all the lines of a spectral series have exactly the same pattern. Preston suggested that the Zeeman pattern was the same in all respects for all the corresponding lines of a given series and that this similarity carried over from one element to another where such elements had similar types of series.

This discovery was known was the Anomalous Zeeman effect, as on first observation, it did not follow any simple law. Later on, the six-fold splitting was realized as being the introduction of quantum mechanics but only after Preston’s death, when the concept of electron spin and wave mechanics was introduced.

And what an untimely death he had. In 1900, Preston died of a perforated ulcer just as he was reaching the height of his academic career. In 1902, Zeeman, together with his former mentor, Lorentz, received the Nobel prize in Physics, for the discovery of his effect, which couldn’t have been proved if Preston didn’t step in. Preston was basically forgotten until the 1920s, when his rule sparked the birth of electron spin (the quantum property of electrons, a form of angular momentum that is a fundamental, unvarying property of the electron) ;only then was his contribution to Physics realized.

157 thoughts on “The Anomalous Zeeman Effect: Zeeman and Preston”

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