The Nobel Prize in Physics 1913
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes
Presentation Speech by former Councillor Th. Nordstrom, President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, on December 10, 1913
Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies
and Gentlemen.
At its meeting on the 11th November the Royal Academy of Sciences
decided to award the Nobel Prize for Physics for the year 1913 to
Dr. Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Professor at the University of Leyden
"for his investigations on the properties of matter at low
temperatures which led, inter alia, to the production of liquid
helium".
As early as 100 years ago research into the behaviour of gases at
various pressures and temperatures gave a great impetus to
physics. Since this time the study of the connection between the
pressure, the volume and the temperature of gases has played a
very important part in physics, and particularly in
thermodynamics - one of the most important disciplines of modern
physics.
In the years 1873 and 1880 Van der Waals presented his famous
laws governing gases which, owing to their great importance for
thermodynamics, were rewarded by the Royal Academy of Sciences in
1910 with the Nobel Prize for
Physics.
The thermodynamic laws of Van der Waals were laid down on
atheoretical basis under the assumption that certain properties
could be attributed to molecules and molecular forces. In the
case of gases the properties of which are changed by pressure and
temperature, or in one way or another do not agree with Van der
Waals' hypothesis, deviations from these laws occur.
A systematic experimental study of these deviations and the
changes they undergo due to temperature and the molecular
structure of the gas must therefore contribute greatly to our
knowledge of the properties of the molecules and of the phenomena
associated with them.
It was for this research that Kamerlingh Onnes set up his famous
laboratory at the beginning of the 1880's, and in it he designed
and improved, with unusual success, the physical apparatus needed
for his experiments.
It is impossible to report briefly here on the many important
results of this work. They embrace the thermodynamic properties
at low temperatures of a series of monatomic and diatomic gases
and their mixtures, and have contributed to the development of
modern thermodynamics and to an elucidation of those associated
phenomena which are so difficult to explain. They have also made
very important contributions to our knowledge of the structure of
matter and of phenomena related to it.
Whilst important on its own account, this research has gained
greater significance because it has led to the attainment of the
lowest temperatures so far reached. These lie in the vicinity of
so-called absolute zero, the lowest temperature in
thermodynamics.
The attainment of low temperatures in general was not possible
until we learnt to condense the so-called permanent gases, which,
since Faraday's pioneer work in this field in the middle of the
1820's, has been one of the most important tasks of
thermodynamics.
After Olszewski, Linde, and Hampson had prepared liquid oxygen
and air in a variety of ways, and after Dewar, having overcome
great experimental difficulties, had succeeded in condensing
hydrogen, all temperatures down to -259°C, i.e. all
temperatures down to 14° from absolute zero, could be
attained.
At these low temperatures all known gases can easily be
condensed, except for helium, which was discovered in the
atmosphere in the year 1895.
Thus, by condensing this it would be possible to reach still
lower temperatures. After both Olszewski and Dewar, Travers, and
Jacquerod had tried in vain to prepare liquid helium, using a
variety of met hods it was generally assumed that it was
impossible.
The question was solved in 1908, however, by Kamerlingh Onnes,
who then prepared liquid helium for the first time.
I should have to cover too much ground if I were to report here
on the experimental equipment with which Kamerlingh Onnes was at
last successful in liquefying helium, and on the enormous
experimental difficulties which had to be overcome. I would only
mention here that the liquefaction of helium represented a
continuation of the long series of investigations into the
properties of gases and liquids at low temperatures which
Kamerlingh Onnes has carried out in so praiseworthy a manner.
These investigations finally led to the determination of the
so-called isotherms of helium and the knowledge gained here was
the first step towards the liquefaction of helium. Kamerlingh
Onnes has constructed cold baths with liquid helium which permit
research to be done into the properties of substances at
temperatures which lie between 4,3° and 1,15° from
absolute zero.
The attainment of these low temperatures is of the greatest
importance to physics research, for at these temperatures both
the properties of the substances and also the course followed by
physical phenomena, are generally quite different from those at
our normal and higher temperatures, and a knowledge of these
changes is of fundamental importance in answering many of the
questions of modern physics.
Let me mention one of these particularly here.
Various principles borrowed from gas thermodynamics have been
transferred to the so-called theory of electrons, which is the
guiding principle in physics in explaining all electrical,
magnetic, optical, and many heat phenomena.
The laws which have been arrived at in this way also seem to be
confirmed by measurements at our normal and higher temperatures.
That the situation is at very low temperatures not the same,
however, has, amongst other things, been shown by Kamerlingh
Onnes' experiments on resistance to electrical conduction at
helium temperatures and by the determinations which Nernst and
his students have carried out in relation to specific heat at
liquid temperatures.
It has become more and more clear that a change in the whole
theory of electrons is necessary. Theoretical work in this
direction has already been begun by a number of research workers,
particularly by Planck and Einstein.
In the meantime new supports had to be created for these
investigations. These could only be obtained by a continued
experimental study of the properties of substances at low
temperatures, particularly at helium temperatures, which are the
most suitable for throwing light upon phenomena in the world of
electrons. Kamerlingh Onnes' merit lies in the fact that he has
created these possibilities and at the same time opened up a
field of the greatest consequence and significance to physical
science.
Owing to the great importance which Kamerlingh Onnes' work has
been seen to have for research in physics, the Royal Academy of
Sciences has found ample grounds for bestowing upon him the Nobel
Prize for Physics for the year 1913.
From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1913
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