Kamerlingh Onnes, Heike 1853-1926
Dutch physicist and Nobel Prize winner

Born in Groningen, he studied physics and mathematics at the university there, and continued his studies at Heidelberg University. He later became Professor of Physics at the University of Leyden (1882-1923), where he established his famous low-temperature laboratory. He tested the ideas of Johannes van der Waals, studying liquids and gases over a wide range of temperatures and pressures. His most noteworthy achievements were the first liquefaction (1908) and later solidification of helium, and his discovery (1911) that the electrical resistance of metals cooled to near absolute zero disappears, a phenomenon later called 'superconductivity'. In 1913 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics, and he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1916.