Centenary of the Zeeman effect

Abstract

The years 1994–97 are marked by a plethora of anniversaries. In 1845 Michael Faraday discovered rotation of the plane of polarization of light in a magnetic field, now known as the ‘Faraday effect’. The first wireless communication was transmitted on 14 August 1894 by Oliver Lodge at a meeting of the British Association in Oxford. This message, sent from the old Clarendon Laboratory to the University Museum, was the first demonstration of the transmission of information by radio using the Morse code, well before the work of Marconi. The centenary was marked by a lecture in Oxford by Peter Rowlands, the author (with J. Patrick Wilson) of Oliver Lodge and the invention of radio .