Kamerlingh Onnes, Heike (redirected from Heike Kamerlingh Onnes)

Kamerlingh Onnes, Heike (hī`kə kä`mərlĭng ôn`əs), 1853–1926, Dutch physicist. He was, from 1882, professor of physics at the Univ. of Leiden. He made important studies of the properties of helium and, in attempting to solidify it, produced a temperature within one degree of absolute zero. In the course of his low temperature experiments, he discovered the property of superconductivity in certain metals. For these researches he received the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physics.

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Kamerlingh Onnes, Heike

(born Sept. 21, 1853, Groningen, Neth.—died Feb. 21, 1926, Leiden) Dutch physicist. He taught at the University of Leiden (1882–1923), and in 1884 he founded the Cryogenic Laboratory (now known by his name) that established Leiden as the world's principal research centre for low-temperature physics. He was the first to produce liquid helium (1908), and he discovered superconductivity. He also investigated the equations describing the states of matter and the general thermodynamic properties of fluids over a wide range of temperatures and pressures. He was awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize for Physics.

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Kamerlingh Onnes, Heike 

Born Sept. 21, 1853, in Groningen; died Feb. 21, 1926, in Leiden. Dutch physicist and chemist. Doctor of philosophical sciences (1879). Professor at the University of Leiden from 1882 to 1924.

In an effort to obtain liquid helium, Kamerlingh Onnes organized a specially equipped cryogenic laboratory at the University of Leiden, which became a world center for low-temperature physics and was subsequently named after him. Here he first achieved temperatures close to absolute zero and in 1908 obtained liquid helium. Kamerlingh Onnes studied the physical properties of various substances at low temperatures, especially those of mercury, lead, and tin. While investigating the electrical resistance of mercury in 1911, he observed that the resistance disappeared at a temperature of 4. 1°K. This phenomenon was called superconductivity. He also worked on thermodynamics, magneto-optics, and radioactivity. Kamerlingh Onnes was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1913.

WORKS

“On the Changes of the Electrical Resistance of Pure Metals at Very Low Temperatures. V. The Disappearance of the Resistance of Mercury.” Communication From the Physical Laboratory at the University of Leiden. 1911, no. 122, p. 13.

REFERENCE

Keesom, W. Gelii. Moscow, 1949. (Translated from English.) (Containsa bibliography of Kamerlingh Onnes’ works.)