Frederik Jozef Belinfante (6 January 1913 – 5 June 1991) was a

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

and a professor at

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

. He was a proponent of the hidden variable interpretation of quantum mechanics. Belinfante was born in

the Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

and was a student of H. A. Kramers at

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange as a Protestantism, Protestant institution, it holds the d ...

. His Ph.D. thesis, published in 1939, is called 'Theory of Heavy Quanta'. Belinfante emigrated to

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

in 1946 and became an associate professor at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

. Two years later, in 1948, he moved to the United States and became a professor at Purdue. There, he studied quantum theory and

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...

. While writing his Ph.D. thesis, Belinfante co-authored a paper with

Wolfgang Pauli Wolfgang Ernst Pauli ( ; ; 25 April 1900 – 15 December 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist and a pioneer of quantum mechanics. In 1945, after having been nominated by Albert Einstein, Pauli received the Nobel Prize in Physics "for the ...

called 'On the statistical behaviour of known and unknown elementary particles' Along with

Léon Rosenfeld Léon Rosenfeld (; 14 August 1904 in Charleroi – 23 March 1974) was a Belgian physicist and a communist activist. Rosenfeld was born into a secular Jewish family. He was a polyglot who knew eight or nine languages and was fluent in at lea ...

, Belinfante derived the Belinfante–Rosenfeld stress–energy tensor. Belinfante's works include ''Measurement and Time Reversal in Objective Quantum Theory'' (1975) and ''Survey of Hidden Variable Theories'' (1973)'','' both part of the ''Monographs in Natural Philosophy'' series.

Personal life

Belinfante was an avid

philatelist Philately (; ) is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. While closely associated with stamp collecting and the study of postage, it is possible ...

with a large collection of Netherlands stamps. He was a contributor of articles on Netherlands philately to the journal of the American Society for Netherlands Philately.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Belinfante, Frederik 1913 births 1991 deaths Scientists from The Hague Purdue University faculty 20th-century Dutch physicists Dutch emigrants to the United States Fellows of the American Physical Society Dutch expatriates in Canada Leiden University alumni