Balthasar van der Pol (27 January 1889 – 6 October 1959) was a Dutch

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 ...

Life and work

Van der Pol began his studies of physics in

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...

in 1911. J. A. Fleming offered van der Pol the use of the Pender Electrical Laboratory at University College for a study of the heuristics of wireless reception on board ships. In

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

he also worked with

J. J. Thomson Sir Joseph John Thomson (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was a British physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, credited with the discovery of the electron, the first subatomic particle to be discovered. In 1897, Thomson showed that ...

. Upon his return to the Netherlands, Balthsar worked with Hendrik Lorentz at Teylers Stichting. For his thesis he wrote ''The effect of an ionised gas on electro-magnetic wave propagation and its application to radio, as demonstrated by glow-discharge measurement'' under the supervision of Willem Henri Julius. He was awarded his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in 1920. He joined

Philips Research Laboratories Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...

in 1921, where he worked until his retirement in 1949. As observed by

Hendrik Casimir Hendrik Brugt Gerhard Casimir (15 July 1909 – 4 May 2000) was a Dutch physicist best known for his research on the two-fluid model of superconductors (together with C. J. Gorter) in 1934 and the Casimir effect (together with D. Polder) in 19 ...

, "Radio might have remained a field of haphazard empiricism along with wild commercial ventures, but for the influence of men like Van der Pol who stressed the need for a more scientific approach." The

differential equation In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions generally represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, an ...

s of coupled electrical systems drew his interest, and he developed the idea of "relaxation oscillations". With J. van der Mark he applied the idea to the heartbeat, which provided one of the earliest quantitative models of the action potential. These studies led him to the van der Pol equation and

Oliver Heaviside Oliver Heaviside FRS (; 18 May 1850 – 3 February 1925) was an English self-taught mathematician and physicist who invented a new technique for solving differential equations (equivalent to the Laplace transform), independently developed ...

’s

operational calculus Operational calculus, also known as operational analysis, is a technique by which problems in analysis, in particular differential equations, are transformed into algebraic problems, usually the problem of solving a polynomial equation. History Th ...

for dealing with differential equations. He submitted articles to ''Philosophical Magazine'' on the operational calculus and, in coordination with H. Bremmer, wrote ''Modern Operational Calculus based on the Two-sided Laplace Integral'', published by Cambridge University Press. He was awarded the

Institute of Radio Engineers The Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) was a professional organization which existed from 1912 until December 31, 1962. On January 1, 1963, it merged with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) to form the Institute of Electrical ...

(now the

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)

Medal of Honor The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the United States Armed Forces' highest military decoration and is awarded to recognize American soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, guardians and coast guardsmen who have distinguished themselves by acts of valo ...

in 1935. The asteroid 10443 van der Pol was named after him. Van der Pol became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1949.

Works

* 1928: (with J van der Mark) ''The Heartbeat considered as a Relaxation oscillation, and an Electrical Model of the Heart''. Phil. Mag. Suppl. No. 6 pp 763–775 * 1947
An electro-mechanical investigation of the Riemann zeta function in the critical strip

Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society The ''Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society'' is a quarterly mathematical journal published by the American Mathematical Society. Scope It publishes surveys on contemporary research topics, written at a level accessible to non-experts. I ...

53: 976–81 * 1964: (with H. Bremmer) ''Operational Calculus''

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pre ...

* 1960: ''Selected Scientific Papers'',

North-Holland North Holland ( nl, Noord-Holland, ) is a province of the Netherlands in the northwestern part of the country. It is located on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht, and west of Friesland and Flevoland. In November 2019, it had a p ...

Two volumes

References

* December 1917
Balth van der Pol
Personalities in Wireless,

Wireless World ''Electronics World'' (''Wireless World'', founded in 1913, and in September 1984 renamed ''Electronics & Wireless World'') is a technical magazine in electronics and RF engineering aimed at professional design engineers. It is produced monthly in ...

, page 592. * H Bremmer (1960,1
The Scientific Work of Balthasar van der Pol
Philips Technical Review 22
Dr. Balthsar van der Pol (1889-1959)
from Philips archives * Giorgio Israel (2004) "Technological Innovation and New Mathematics: van der Pol and the birth of non-linear dynamics", pages 52 to 77 in ''Technological Concepts and Mathematical Models in the Evolution of Modern Engineering Systems'', edited by Ana Milian Gasca and others,

Birkhäuser Birkhäuser was a Swiss publisher founded in 1879 by Emil Birkhäuser. It was acquired by Springer Science+Business Media in 1985. Today it is an imprint used by two companies in unrelated fields: * Springer continues to publish science (particu ...

Balthasar Van der Pol
at IEEE.org * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pol, Balthasar Van Der 1889 births 1959 deaths 20th-century Dutch physicists IEEE Medal of Honor recipients Scientists from Utrecht (city) Delft University of Technology faculty Utrecht University alumni Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences 20th-century Dutch inventors Valdemar Poulsen Gold Medal recipients