Heike Kamerlingh The Nobel Prize in Physics 1913

biography

This doctoral thesis, which is aimed at a broad public, presents a biography of Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, the low-temperature physicist at Leiden University. Together with J.D. van der Waals, H.A. Lorentz, P. Zeeman, J.H. van 't Hoff and W. Einthoven, Onnes represents the so-called 'Second Golden Age', the heyday of Dutch physics in the period around 1900. The central question in this book is how Kamerlingh Onnes was able to succeed so brilliantly in developing his cryogenics laboratory - undoubtedly an exceptional feat in terms of its scale and its almost industrial approach in the Netherlands of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. A related question is what determined his success - his abilities as a scientist, his organisational talent, or his personality? This portrayal of Kamerlingh Onnes, the man and the scientist, gives ample attention to the social and scientific environment in which he operated.

Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853-1926) was the oldest son of a Groningen manufacturer of bricks and roofing tiles. He attended the HBS, at that time a new type of school emphasising the exact sciences and with well-equipped laboratories that were the envy of many a university. He began studying chemistry in 1870, switching to physics two years later during his Wanderjahre in Heidelberg, under the influence of his instructor Gustav Kirchhoff. In 1879 he gained his doctorate - New evidence of the axial rotation of the earth - at Groningen, with R.A. Mees as his supervisor, on the subject of a shortened version of Foucault's pendulum. In 1882, after three years in Delft as assistant to Johannes Bosscha, Kamerlingh Onnes was appointed Professor of Experimental Physics in Leiden. In his inaugural lecture on 11 November, he coined the aphorism 'through measurement to knowledge'. While still a student in Groningen, Onnes, whose talents spanned both the experimental and theoretical fields, began to immerse himself in molecular theory as soon as Van der Waals' pioneering doctoral thesis on the equation of state and the continuity of the gaseous and liquid states was published in 1873. In Leiden he embarked on a programme to meticulously verify the equation of state and the law of corresponding states (his approach to this law in 1881 was more broad-based than Van der Waals' had been a year earlier) and thus to learn more about the structure of molecules and molecular forces. And until about 1900 he carried out studies that were linked to the theoretical work of H.A. Lorentz, his closest colleague. The high point of the 'Lorentz series' was Pieter Zeeman's discovery of the Zeeman effect in 1896. With an eye to rapid international dissemination of the research of his Physics Laboratory, Kamerlingh Onnes published the results in an English-language journal, Communications from the Physical

Laboratory of the University of Leiden.

Onnes' approach rested on two foundation stones: accuracy and cold. Accuracy because both the equation of state and the law of corresponding states had only an approximate validity, and identifying deviations in those laws would lead to advances in physics. Cold because the best way to test Van der Waals' theories was to start with research on simple substances (and mixtures), and this required low temperatures. Substances like oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen have critical temperatures (above which they cannot be liquefied, no matter how much pressure is applied) far below the freezing point for water, so there was no option but to set up a cryogenics laboratory. This undertaking absorbed almost all Onnes' energy during the initial period of his professorship. While developing the cyrogenics laboratory, Onnes drew gratefully on the achievements of others. He borrowed the idea of the cascade from Pictet, the choice of chloromethane and ethylene for the first and second steps was inspired by Cailletet, the collection apparatus for liquid oxygen came from Wroblewski, the double-walled flask had been invented by Dewar, and Joule-Kelvin cooling was first applied by Linde and Hampson. But Onnes gave his own twist to all these innovations, integrating them into apparatus which bore an unmistakeable Leiden stamp. For instance, he was the first among his peers to systematically apply precooling by introducing spiral tubes around which cold gas flowed.

In 1892 the Leiden cascade produced the first drops of liquid oxygen, in 1906 the hydrogen liquefier was completed and on 10 July 1908 Onnes was the first to achieve the liquefaction of helium, making Leiden 'the coldest place on earth'. The cascade, the hydrogen and helium liquefier and the cyrostats were all designed with Onnes' scientific programme in mind. That meant that the Leiden cyrostats could be kept at a constant temperature with a 0.01 degree of accuracy, essential in experiments where equilibrium occurred gradually. These achievements, using equipment which - in contrast to his competitors - Onnes described in detail in his publications, made the Leiden cryogenics laboratory the only one of its kind in the world for accurate low-temperature research in the fields of thermodynamics, magnetism and electrical conductivity. Guest researchers travelled from far afield to the laboratory on Steenschuur street to take advantage of the facilities it offered.

Onnes succeeded step by step in expanding his empire. He may have started in 1882 with only one assistant, one technician and half a caretaker, but his numerous letters to the Board of Governors had the desired effect. In these he had tirelessly - year after year and without the slightest trace of humour - predicted the laboratory's 'downfall' if money for additional personnel, instruments, alterations and extensions was not immediately forthcoming. A second assistant came, followed by a second instrument maker, a machinist, a custodian, apprentices, a laboratory assistant, a second custodian, yet more assistants, and more technicians. In addition, the Physics Laboratory housed a unique training school for instrument makers, a first and then a second Janssen fund was established (enabling Onnes to retain talented technicians like Flim and Kesselring), and a second Professor of Experimental Physics (Kuenen) was appointed to relieve Lorentz of his teaching duties. Meanwhile, the laboratory expanded one building at a time along the Langebrug (and later the Nieuwsteeg), with functionality triumphing over aesthetics. In this way the sleepy physics department on the Steenschuur that Onnes had inherited from Rijke, his predecessor, was transformed over a quarter of a century to a cryogenics institute of international standing. The crowning glory was the discovery in 1911 of superconductivity. Two years later Kamerlingh Onnes was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his work with liquid helium.

Of course, a large, complex institute like the cryogenics laboratory benefited from being tightly run. On the Steenschuur, Onnes' word was law, there was a file for everything and people were expected to work hard. Onnes looked after his staff well and, when the occasion demanded, visited the families of his staff and technicians, but his own concerns were paramount. Under those circumstances Kuenen barely had time for his own experiments, and Willem Keesom, Onnes' right-hand man, had to conduct at home theoretical work that was not directly related to the current experimental research - his results were subsequently most opportune for Onnes. In 1883 Lorentz had been so kind as to take over the large class of medical students from his friend Onnes, whose health was delicate, but Onnes had to toil long and hard before a lecturer - Siertsema - was appointed to relieve Lorentz in 1901. In 1905, when Lorentz threatened to leave for Munich because his teaching load had once again increased, Onnes organised an institute for theoretical physics and arranged matters so that Kuenen could return to Leiden as a second Professor of Experimental Physics, whose main job was to take over the teaching that Lorentz had tired of.

The liquefaction of hydrogen in 1906 strengthened Leiden's position as an international centre for low-temperature research. Physicists who wished to continue their research into matters such as phosphorescence, paramagnetism, the Hall effect, dielectric constants and absorption spectra at lower temperatures than could be achieved in their own laboratories were given a warm welcome by Onnes. Above all, the first international congress on cold in Paris in 1908, where Onnes stole the show with his report on liquid helium, unleashed a stream of guest researchers (and visitors) to Leiden, leading to greater diversity in the low-temperature work conducted there. But also to a desperate lack of research space because Onnes, despite old government promises, was unable to make use of the left wing of the laboratory until 1920. Onnes went out of his way for his foreign guests, offering them hospitality and accommodation at Huize ter Wetering. But the invasion also led to fragmentation, and the demands on the hydrogen equipment were so great that authentic Leiden research such as Keesom's specific heats came under pressure.

According to Pieter Zeeman, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes drove his people as the wind drives the clouds. The miracle is that a delicate eleven-year old, who spent a year sick at home reading Plutarch and who had to take a cure in the Alps every summer throughout his life, was able to muster the strength and energy to launch such an ambitious undertaking as a cryogenics laboratory and to make it flourish. Assisted by his wife Betsy, Heike succeeded in concentrating his limited strength on that one goal. Just trying something out for the sake of it did not fit within his programme, but then pursuing non-essentials does not make liquid helium.

Heike Kamerlingh Onnes was born on September 21, 1853, at Groningen, The Netherlands. His father, Harm Kamerlingh Onnes, was the owner of a brickworks near Groningen; his mother was Anna Gerdina Coers of Arnhem, the daughter of an architect.

After spending the allotted time at the "Hoogere Burgerschool" in his native town (secondary school without classical languages), the director of which was the later Professor of Chemistry at Leyden J.M. van Bemmelen, he received supplementary teaching in Greek and Latin. In 1870 he entered the University of Groningen, obtained his "candidaats" degree (approx. B.Sc.) the following year, and then went to Heidelberg as a student of Bunsen and Kirchhoff from October 1871 until April 1873. Thereafter he returned to Groningen, where he passed his "doctoraal" examination (approx. M.Sc.) in 1878 and obtained the doctor's degree in 1879 with a remarkable thesis Nieuwe bewijzen voor de aswenteling der aarde (New proofs of the rotation of the earth). Meanwhile in 1878 he had become assistant at the Polytechnicum at Delft, working under Bosscha, in whose place he also lectured in 1881 and 1882, the year in which he was appointed Professor of Experimental Physics and Meteorology at Leyden University, in succession to P.L. Rijke.

Kamerlingh Onnes' talents for solving scientific problems was already apparent in 1871, when at the age of 18 he was awarded a Gold Medal for a competition sponsored by the Natural Sciences Faculty of the University of Utrecht, followed the next year by a Silver Medal for a similar event at the University of Groningen. When working with Kirchhoff he also won the "Seminarpreis", entitling him to occupy one of the two existing assistantships under Kirchhoff.

In his doctor's thesis theoretical as well as experimental proof was given that Foucault's well-known pendulum experiment should be considered as a special case of a large group of phenomena which in a much simpler fashion can be used to prove the rotational movement of the earth. In 1881 he published a paper Algemeene theorie der vloeistoffen (General theory of liquids), which dealt with the kinetic theory of the liquid state, approaching Van der Waals' law of corresponding states from a mechanistic point of view. This work can be considered as the beginning of his life-long investigations into the properties of matter at low temperatures. In his inaugural address De beteekenis van het quantitatief onderzoek in de natnurkunde (The importance of quantitative research in physics) he arrived at his well-known motto "Door meten tot weten" (Knowledge through measurement), an appreciation of the value of measurements which concerned him throughout his scientific career. After his appointment to the Physics Chair at Leyden, Kamerlingh Onnes reorganized the Physical Laboratory (now known as the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory) in a way to suit his own programme. His researches were mainly based on the theories of his two great compatriots J.D. van der Waals and H.A. Lorentz. In particular he had in mind the establishment of a cryogenic laboratory which would enable him to verify Van der Waals' law of corresponding states over a large range of temperatures. His efforts to reach extremely low temperatures culminated in the liquefaction of helium in 1908. Bringing the temperature of the helium down to 0,9°K, he reached the nearest approach to absolute zero then achieved, thus justifying the saying that the coldest spot on earth was situated at Leyden. It was on account of these low-temperature studies that he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Later, his pupils W.H. Keesom and W.J. de Haas ( Lorentz' son-in-law) conducted experiments in the same laboratory which led them still closer to absolute zero.

Other investigations in his laboratory which gradually gained in importance and international fame, included thermodynamics, the radioactivity law, and observations on optical, magnetic and electrical phenomena, such as the study of fluorescence and phosphorescence, the magnetic rotation of the polarization plane, absorption spectra of crystals in the magnetic field; also the Hall effect, dielectric constants, and especially the resistance of metals. A momentous discovery (1911) was that of the superconductivity of pure metals such as mercury, tin and lead at very low temperatures, and following from this the observation of persisting currents. The results of Kamerlingh Onnes' investigations were published in the Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Amsterdam and also in the Communications from the Physical Laboratory at Leyden. Many foreign scientists came to Leyden to work in his laboratory for shorter or longer periods. The laboratory gained additional fame throughout the world through the training school for instrument-makers and glass-blowers housed in it, founded by Kamerlingh Onnes in 1901.

At the early age of 30, Kamerlingh Onnes was appointed a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Amsterdam. He was one of the founders of the Association (now Institut) International du Froid. He was a Commander in the Order of the Netherlands Lion, the Order of Orange-Nassau of the Netherlands, the Order of St. Olaf of Norway, and the Order of Polonia Restituta of Poland. He held an honorary doctorate of the University of Berlin, and was awarded the Matteucci Medal, the Rumford Medal, the Baumgarten Preis and the Franklin Medal. He was Member of the Society of Friends of Science in Moscow, and of the Academies of Sciences in Copenhagen, Uppsala, Turin, Vienna, G?ttingen and Halle; Foreign Associate of the Acad?mie des Sciences of Paris; Foreign Member of the Accademia dei Lincei of Rome and the Royal Society of London; and Honorary Member of the Physical Society of Stockholm, the Soci?t? Helv?tique des Sciences Naturelles, the Royal Institution of London, the Sociedad Espa?ola da F?sica y Qumica of Madrid, and the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia.

Outside his scientific work, Kamerlingh Onnes' favourite recreations were his family life and helpfulness to those who needed it. Although his work was his hobby, he was far from being a pompous scholar. A man of great personal charm and philanthropic humanity, he was very active during and after the First World War in smoothing out political differences between scientists and in succouring starving children in countries suffering from food shortage. In 1887 he married Maria Adriana Wilhelmina Elisabeth Bijleveld, who was a great help to him in these activities and who created a home widely known for its hospitality. They had one son, Albert, who became a high-ranking civil servant at The Hague.

free web hits counter

This is my BrainyGoose:
United States, IL, Chicago, English, Italian, Genry, Male, 21-25, bodybulding, swiming.