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Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853-1926) was the son of a well-to-do
industrialist from whom he inherited his mechanical propensity.
He completed his undergraduate studies in physics and mathematics
at the University of Groningen, his home town. Before he started
his graduate work in that city in 1873, he spent three semesters
with physicists Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff in Heidelberg,
Germany. By that time he had already won several competitive prizes.
In 1879, he obtained his doctorate in physics magna cum laude
with Prof. R.A. Mees in Groningen. In 1878, he was appointed an
assistant to Johannes Bosscha, Professor of Physics at the Delft
Polytechnic School. In 1881, he published a paper, Algemene
theorie der vloeistoffen (General theory of liquids), which
showed the law of corresponding states can be derived from scaling
arguments, based on molecular properties and motion.
Kamerlingh Onnes was appointed to a professorship at the University
of Leiden in 1882. He chaired the Department of Experimental Physics
until 1923. From the beginning, his goal was to advance scientific
knowledge by careful experimentation. “Door meten tot
weten” [Through measurement to knowledge] was his motto.
He founded a famous school for instrument makers, which would
assure a steady supply of highly skilled craftsmen to his own
laboratory and to other institutions in the Netherlands for many
decades. Kamerlingh Onnes published most of his work in the Verslagen,
later Proceedings, of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and
Sciences (KNAW). Almost from the beginning of his professorship
in Leiden, however, he published English-language versions of
all work in the Communications of the Physical Laboratory at the
University of Leiden.
Kamerlingh Onnes established a world-class laboratory, uniquely
equipped for cryogenic work related to the liquefaction of gases.
His 42-year tenure at the University was filled with remarkable
discoveries. His crowning achievement was the liquefaction of
helium in 1908, which opened the new field of low-temperature
physics and enabled him to discover superconductivity in 1911.
From the 1880s to 1908, however, he and his group also made extensive
studies of fluid mixture behavior, a topic covered on this site.
Kamerlingh Onnes was elected to the Royal Netherlands Academy
of Sciences as early as 1883, before his 30th birthday. He was
elected to the Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities in 1886.
He received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1913.
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Biographical references
- Biography of Heike Kamerlingh Onnes,
link to the ‘Nobel Prize’
site.
- Levensbericht (pdf
110 Kb)
E. Kamerlingh Onnes-Bijleveld, 'Heike Kamerlingh Onnes', Koninklijke
Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Verslagen Natuurkunde,
volume 35-I (1926), pp. 206-210.
- Nobel
Lecture (pdf 723 Kb)
H. Kamerlingh Onnes, Investigations into the Properties of Substances
at Low Temperatures, which Have Led, amongst Other Things, to
the Preparation of Liquid Helium, Nobel Lecture (1913).
References to selected publications
by Kamerlingh Onnes
On the law of corresponding states
- H. Kamerlingh Onnes, Algemene theorie
der vloeistoffen, Verhandelingen Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen
21 (1881); No 1-5, 1-24. No 6-7, 1-14; No 8, 1-9.
On 3D-models
- H.
Kamerlingh Onnes, Die reducirten Gibbs'schen Flächen
(image-pdf of the original article
1.229 Kb). Mitteilungen no. 66 aus dem physikalischen Institut
in Leiden. Archives Neerlandaises des Sciences Exactes et Naturelles.
Société Hollandaise des Sciences, Serie 2, volume
5 (1900), pp 665-658.
- H.
Kamerlingh Onnes, Contributions to the knowledge of Van der
Waals’ ψ-surface. I. Graphical treatment of the transverse-plait,
(pdf 405 Kb). Communication
No. 59a from the Physical Laboratory of Leiden, Koninklijke
Akademie van Wetenschappen, Proceedings of the Section of Sciences,
volume III (1901), pp. 275-288
- H. Kamerlingh Onnes and M. Reinganum,
Contributions to the knowledge of Van der Waals’; ψ-surface.
II. The part of the transverse-plait in the neighbourhood of
the plaitpoint in Kuenen’s experiments on retrograde condensation
(pdf 318 Kb). Communication
No. 59b from the Physical Laboratory of Leiden, Koninklijke
Akademie van Wetenschappen, Proceedings of the Section of Sciences,
volume III (1901), pp. 289-298.
- Abstract
- - H. Kamerlingh Onnes and Miss T.C. Jolles,
Contributions to the knowledge of Van der Waals’ ψ-surface.
XIV. Graphical deduction of the results of Kuenen's experiments
on mixtures of ethane and nitrous oxide. (image
pdf of the original article 1.829 Kb). Supplement 14 to the
Communications from the Physical Laboratory of Leiden, Koninklijke
Akademie van Wetenschappen, Proceedings of the Section of Sciences,
volume IX, 2nd part (1907), pp. 664-672.
- Abstract
On experiments in fluid mixtures
On the liquefaction of helium
- H.
Kamerlingh Onnes, The liquefaction of helium
(image-pdf of the original article 1.423 Kb). Communication
No. 108 from the Physical Laboratory of Leiden, Koninklijke
Akademie van Wetenschappen, Proceedings of the Section of Sciences,
volume XI (1908), pp. 168-185.
On superconductivity
- H. Kamerlingh Onnes, Further experiments
with liquid helium, B. On the change of resistance of pure metals
at very low temperatures, etc. Communication No. 119 from the
Physical Laboratory at Leiden, Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen,
Proceedings of the Section of Sciences, volume XII (1911), pp.
1107-1113.
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