Karel Niessen

Niessen (2nd f. left) at Leiden university

Karel Frederik Niessen (1895, Velsen^[1] – 1967) was a Dutch theoretical physicist who made contributions to quantum mechanics and is known for the Pauli-Niessen model.

Education

Niessen began his studies in physics at the University of Utrecht in 1914. In 1922, he received his doctorate under L. S. Ornstein.^[1] He was an assistant at the University from 1921 to 1928, except for his postdoctoral study and research at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich under Arnold Sommerfeld, 1925 to 1926 on a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship. He also spent 1928 to 1929 on a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.^[2]

In 1922, Niessen’s doctoral thesis,^[3] as well as Wolfgang Pauli’s extended doctoral thesis,^[4] dealt with the hydrogen molecule ion in the Bohr-Sommerfeld framework. Their work is referred to as the Pauli-Niessen model.^[5] Their works helped to show the inadequacy of the old quantum mechanics, which gave physicists the impetus to explore new paths^[6] which led to the matrix mechanics formulation of quantum mechanics by Werner Heisenberg and Max Born in 1925 ^[7][8][9] and the wave mechanics formulation by Erwin Schrödinger in 1926,^{[10][11][12][13]} which were shown to be equivalent.^[14]

Career

Upon Niessen’s return to the Netherlands in 1929, he took a lifelong position as a theoretical physicist at Philips Electronics in Eindhoven.^[2]

Selected Literature

• Karel F. Niessen Zur Quantentheorie des Wasserstoffmolekülions, doctoral dissertation, University of Utrecht, Utrecht: I. Van Druten (1922) as cited in Mehra, Volume 5, Part 2, 2001, p. 932.
• K. F. Niessen Zur Quantentheorie des Wasserstoffmolekülions, Annalen der Physik 70 129-134 (1923)
• K. F. Niessen Ableitung des Planckschen Strahlungsgesetzes für Atome mit zwei Freiheitsgraden, Annalen der Physik 75 743–780 (1924)
• K. F. Niessen (Utrecht) Die Energieberechnung in einem sehr vereinfachten Vierkörperproblem, Zeitschrift für Physik Volume 43, Numbers 9-10, Pages 675-693 (1927). Received 14 April 1927.
• K. F. Niessen Überdie annähernden komplexen Lösungen der Schrödingerschen Differentialgleichun für den harmonischen Oszillator, Annalen der Physik 85 487-514 (1928) as cited in Jammer, 1966, p. 279.
• K. F. Niessen On the Saturation of the Electric and Magnetic Polarization of Gases in Quantum Mechanics, Phys. Rev. 34 253 - 278 (1929). Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Received 1 June 1929.
• K. F. Niessen (Physics Department, Madison, Wisconsin) Ein Gas in gekreuzten Feldern nach der Quantenmechanik Journal Zeitschrift für Physik, Volume 58, Numbers 1-2, Pages 63–74 (1929). Received 13 July 1929.
• K. F. Niessen Über das akustische analogon der sommerfeldschen oberflächenwelle Niessen, K. F. Physica 8 (3) 337-343 (1941)
• K. F. Niessen On one of Heisenberg's hypotheses in the theory of specific heat of superconductors, Physica 16 (2) 77-83 (1950)

References

• Jammer, Max The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics (McGraw Hill, 1966)
• Mehra, Jagdish, and Helmut Rechenberg The Historical Development of Quantum Theory. Volume 5 Erwin Schrödinger and the Rise of Wave Mechanics. Part 2 The Creation of Wave Mechanics: Early Response and Applications 1925 - 1926. (Springer, 2001) ISBN 0-387-95180-6

Notes

1. Promotion data
2. Author Catalog: Niessen – American Philosophical Society
3. Karel F. Niessen Zur Quantentheorie des Wasserstoffmolekülions, doctoral dissertation, University of Utrecht, Utrecht: I. Van Druten (1922) as cited in Mehra, Volume 5, Part 2, 2001, p. 932.
4. W. Pauli Über das Modell des Wasserstoffmolekülions, Ann. D. Phys. 68 (4) 177-240 (1922). Extended doctoral dissertation; received 4 March 1922, published in issue No. 11 of 3 August 1922.
5. H. C. Urey The Structure of the Hydrogen Molecule Ion, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 11 618-21 (1925). Johns Hopkins University. Read before the Academy April 27, 1925. Urey – PNAS.
6. Mehra, Volume 5, Part 2, pp. 850-851.
7. W. Heisenberg, Über quantentheoretische Umdeutung kinematischer und mechanischer Beziehungen, Zeitschrift für Physik 33 879-893, 1925 (received July 29, 1925). [English translation in: B. L. van der Waerden, editor, Sources of Quantum Mechanics (Dover Publications, 1968) ISBN 0-486-61881-1 (English title: Quantum-Theoretical Re-interpretation of Kinematic and Mechanical Relations).]
8. M. Born and P. Jordan, Zur Quantenmechanik, Zeitschrift für Physik 34 858-888, 1925 (received September 27, 1925). [English translation in: B. L. van der Waerden, editor, Sources of Quantum Mechanics (Dover Publications, 1968) ISBN 0-486-61881-1]
9. M. Born, W. Heisenberg, and P. Jordan, Zur Quantenmechanik II, Zeitschrift für Physik 35 557-615, 1925 (received November, 1925). [English translation in: B. L. van der Waerden, editor, Sources of Quantum Mechanics (Dover Publications, 1968) ISBN 0-486-61881-1]
10. Erwin Schrödinger (From the German) Quantization as an Eigenvalue Problem (First Communication), Annalen der Physik 79 (4) 361-376, 1926. [English translation in Gunter Ludwig Wave Mechanics 94-105 (Pergamon Press, 1968) ISBN 0-08-203204-1]
11. Erwin Schrödinger (From the German) Quantization as an Eigenvalue Problem (Second Communication), Annalen der Physik 79 (6) 489-527, 1926. [English translation in Gunter Ludwig Wave Mechanics 106-126 (Pergamon Press, 1968) ISBN 0-08-203204-1]
12. Erwin Schrödinger (From the German) Quantization as an Eigenvalue Problem (Third Communication), Annalen der Physik 80 (13) 437-490, 1926.
13. Erwin Schrödinger (From the German) Quantization as an Eigenvalue Problem (Fourth Communication), Annalen der Physik 81 (18) 109-139, 1926. [English translation in Gunter Ludwig Wave Mechanics 151-167 (Pergamon Press, 1968) ISBN 0-08-203204-1]
14. Erwin Schrödinger (From the German) On the Relationship of the Heisenberg-Born-Jordan Quantum Mechanics to Mine, Annalen der Physik 79 (8) 734-756, 1926. [English translation in Gunter Ludwig Wave Mechanics 127-150 (Pergamon Press, 1968) ISBN 0-08-203204-1]