Heike Kamerlingh Onnes

Heike Kamerlingh Onnes
Kamerlingh Onnes in 1913
Born	(1853-09-21)21 September 1853 Groningen, Netherlands
Died	21 February 1926(1926-02-21) (aged 72) Leiden, South Holland, Netherlands
Alma mater	University of Heidelberg (no degree) University of Groningen (MSc, 1878; PhD, 1879)
Known for	Discovering liquid helium (1908) Discovering superconductivity (1911)
Title	Professor of Experimental Physics
Term	1882–1923
Predecessor	Pieter Rijke
Awards	Matteucci Medal (1910) Rumford Medal (1912) Nobel Prize in Physics (1913) Franklin Medal (1915)
Scientific career
Fields	Low temperature physics
Institutions	Delft Polytechnic (1878–1882) Leiden University (1882–1923)
Thesis	Nieuwe bewijzen voor de aswenteling der aarde (New proofs of the rotation of the earth) (1879)
Academic advisors	Robert Bunsen Gustav Kirchhoff
Doctoral students	Pieter Zeeman (1893) Jacob Clay (1908) Wander Johannes de Haas (1912)

Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (Dutch: [ˈɦɛikə ˈkaːmərlɪŋ ˈɔnəs]; 21 September 1853 – 21 February 1926) was a Dutch experimental physicist. After studying in Groningen and Heidelberg, he became professor of experimental physics at Leiden University where he taught from 1882 to 1923. In 1904, he established a cryogenics laboratory where he exploited the Hampson–Linde cycle to investigate how materials behave when cooled to nearly absolute zero. In 1908, he became the first to liquefy helium, cooling it to near 1.5 kelvin, at the time the coldest temperature achieved on earth. For this research, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1913. Using liquid helium to investigate the electrical conductivity of solid mercury, he found in 1911 that at 4.2 K its electrical resistance vanishes, thus discovering superconductivity.^[1][2][3]