Early research at Leiden and some of its methodological implications

Abstract

It was in the Physical Laboratory of the University of Leiden that helium was first liquefied in 1908, that superconductivity was first observed in 1911, that helium was first solidified in 1926, and many properties of what eventually came to be known as superfluid helium were first discovered. Many other developments — of a less “dramatic” nature, but as important to the development of low temperature physics — took place in Leiden which, between 1908 and 1923, was the only laboratory in the world¹ where liquid helium could be produced and used to make physical measurements. These achievements were the result of a long-term strategy first set many years before 1908 by the Laboratory’s Director, the person who was known among the members of the Institut Internationale du Froid as “le gentleman du zero absolu” or as “Mr. Freezer” for some Dutch cartoonists, the person appointed to the first chair of experimental physics in the Netherlands, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853–1926).²