Bernard Roelof Andries Nijboer (30 September 1915 – 25 January 1999) was a Dutch physicist and professor at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; , formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public university, public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2023, it had an enrollment of ...

from 1956 until 1984. He was mainly active in the fields of

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...

and

solid-state physics Solid-state physics is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as solid-state chemistry, quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy. It is the largest branch of condensed matter physics. Solid-state phy ...

Biography

Ben Nijboer was born as the eldest son of Roelof Nijboer and Janna Klamer. He grew up in

Groningen Groningen ( , ; ; or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen (province), Groningen province in the Netherlands. Dubbed the "capital of the north", Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of ...

where he visited the Rijks H.B.S; one of his teachers in mathematics was professor Dr O. Bottema from

Delft Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...

. In 1932 at the age of sixteen he enrolled as a student in mathematics and physics at the

Groningen University The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; , abbreviated as RUG) is a public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen, Netherlands. Founded in 1614, the university is the second oldest in the country (after ...

and after his bachelor's degree he majored in theoretical physics. His teachers were the future Nobel laureate in Physics

Frits Zernike Frits Zernike (; 16 July 1888 – 10 March 1966) was a Dutch physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1953 for his invention of the phase-contrast microscope. Early life and education Frederick "Frits" Zernike was born on 16 July ...

, dr. H. C. Brinkman and dr. R. Kronig. He graduated with distinction in 1937. On August 16, 1941, he married in Vries Ali Wildeman (1913-2017). From their marriage three daughters were born.

Work and research

After his graduation in 1937. Ben Nijboer spent a year in Bristol on a scholarship in the group of the future Nobel laureate

Nevill Mott Sir Nevill Francis Mott (30 September 1905 – 8 August 1996) was a British physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1977 for his work on the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems, especially amorphous semiconductor ...

. He worked on a problem concerning semiconductors, by his own account "without much enthusiasm." He came in contact with Jewish physicists who had emigrated from Germany, amongst whom

Herbert Fröhlich Herbert Fröhlich (9 December 1905 – 23 January 1991) FRS was a German-born British physicist. Personal life Fröhlich was born on 9 December 1905 in Rexingen, Baden-Württemberg. He was the son of Fanny Frida (née Schwarz) and Jakob Juli ...

Heinz London Heinz London (Bonn, Germany 7 November 1907 – 3 August 1970) was a German-British physicist. Together with his brother Fritz London he was a pioneer in the field of superconductivity. Biography London was born in Bonn in a liberal Jewish-Ger ...

and

Walter Heitler Walter Heinrich Heitler (; 2 January 1904 – 15 November 1981) was a German physicist who made contributions to quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory. He brought chemistry under quantum mechanics through his theory of valence bondi ...

. He published his first article in 1937 (with C. J. Bouwkamp) in Physica: '' Bemerkungen über Feldstarkeabhängigkeit der dialektrischen Konstante und Kerneffekt ''. On return from England, he was drafted for military service, which was extended for an additional year as a consequence of the mobilisation. His conscription ended with the demobilisation in May 1940. His first paid job was being a teacher substitute in Groningen; he substituted for a teacher who was court-martialed to three months imprisonment for surrendering to the Germans before he shot his last bullet.

Doctoral research

In the summer of 1940, he was professor Zernike's assistant at the University of Groningen. In the context of his doctoral research, he explored a problem in theoretical optics: optical imaging in a microscope. The problem here is how to account for the effect of

diffraction Diffraction is the deviation of waves from straight-line propagation without any change in their energy due to an obstacle or through an aperture. The diffracting object or aperture effectively becomes a secondary source of the Wave propagation ...

, combined with the geometric image defects due to the lens not being ideal. His teacher Zernike had developed a computational method for the case of

spherical aberration In optics, spherical aberration (SA) is a type of aberration found in optical systems that have elements with spherical surfaces. This phenomenon commonly affects lenses and curved mirrors, as these components are often shaped in a spherical ...

and Nijboer managed to expand this for

astigmatism Astigmatism is a type of refractive error due to rotational asymmetry in the eye's refractive power. The lens and cornea of an eye without astigmatism are nearly spherical, with only a single radius of curvature, and any refractive errors ...

and

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to Nociception, respond normally to Pain, painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal Circadian rhythm, sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate ...

. The results are known as the Nijboer-Zernike theory. In 1942 he acquired his Ph.D. with his dissertation ''The diffraction theory of aberrations.'' At the beginning of the 21st century, this theoretical work was revived as a consequence of advances in the chip lithography. In 2002, sixty years after Nijboers dissertation, his research was followed up with the Extended Nijboer Zernike (ENZ) Analysis & Aberration Retrieval by researchers at the

Philips Research Laboratories Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

in Eindhoven and the

TU Delft The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...

Work in Princeton

Fulbright scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

enabled him in 1949 to work in

Princeton Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the Unit ...

, New Jersey (USA) at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

for a year. He stayed there from September 1, 1949 to June 1, 1950 and met physicists like

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II. He is often ...

John von Neumann John von Neumann ( ; ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian and American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist and engineer. Von Neumann had perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time, in ...

Abraham Pais Abraham Pais (; May 19, 1918 – July 28, 2000) was a Dutch- American physicist and science historian. Pais earned his Ph.D. from University of Utrecht just prior to a Nazi ban on Jewish participation in Dutch universities during World War II ...

Rudolf Peierls Sir Rudolf Ernst Peierls, (; ; 5 June 1907 – 19 September 1995) was a German-born British physicist who played a major role in Tube Alloys, Britain's nuclear weapon programme, as well as the subsequent Manhattan Project, the combined Allied ...

and

Freeman Dyson Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was a British-American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrix, random matrices, math ...

. He worked with

George Placzek George Placzek (; September 26, 1905 – October 9, 1955) was a Czech physicist. His work involved a fundamental theory of Raman scattering, molecular spectroscopy in gases and liquids, neutron physics and mathematical physics. Together with Ot ...

and

Léon Van Hove Léon Charles Prudent Van Hove (10 February 1924 – 2 September 1990) was a Belgian physicist and a Director General of CERN. He developed a scientific career spanning mathematics, solid state physics, elementary particle and nuclear physics to ...

on the theory of

neutron diffraction Neutron diffraction or elastic neutron scattering is the application of neutron scattering to the determination of the atomic and/or magnetic structure of a material. A sample to be examined is placed in a beam of Neutron temperature, thermal or ...

. The nuclear reactors, due to their large-scale production of

neutron The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , that has no electric charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. The Discovery of the neutron, neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932, leading to the discovery of nucle ...

s, offered a new possibility for the study of solids and liquids, from which more information could be derived than from the X-ray scattering. An X-ray is a snapshot of the position of the atoms, while neutron scattering gives information about their movements. The interpretation of this information required a theory, which was developed by Placzek, Van Hove and Nijboer. Since then, this is the basis of this entire field of research.N.G.van Kampen, Levensbericht L.C.P. van Hove, in: Levensberichten en herdenkingen, 1992, Amsterdam, pp. 21-26

Professor in Utrecht

In 1950 he was appointed by the University of Utrecht as a

lecturer Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...

, with the teaching assignment of physics for chemistry students. In 1955 he studied for 6 months at the

Niels Bohr Institute The Niels Bohr Institute () is a research institute of the University of Copenhagen. The research of the institute spans astronomy, geophysics, nanotechnology, particle physics, quantum mechanics, and biophysics. Overview The institute was foun ...

in Copenhagen. On May 27, 1955 he was appointed as professor of theoretical physics at Utrecht. His inaugural address was titled: ''Electrons and nucleons, the building blocks of matter'' . His closest colleagues were Léon Van Hove and

Nico van Kampen Nicolaas 'Nico' Godfried van Kampen (22 June 1921 – 6 October 2013) was a Dutch theoretical physicist, who worked mainly on statistical mechanics and non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Van Kampen was born in Leiden, and was a nephew of Frits Zer ...

. In 1961, Van Hove left for

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

in Geneva and Ben Nijboer became his successor as professor-administrator of the Institute for Theoretical Physics. In 1964-1965 he worked for a year at the '

Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Lemont, Illinois, Lemont, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1946, the laboratory is owned by the United Sta ...

' in Chicago (USA). Together with his PhD students Ben Nijboer studied several subjects: various aspects of the construction of

Crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macros ...

with F. W. De Wette and J.J.J. Kokkedee, the theory of

Van der Waals equation The van der Waals equation is a mathematical formula that describes the behavior of real gases. It is an equation of state that relates the pressure, volume, Avogadro's law, number of molecules, and temperature in a fluid. The equation modifies ...

with MJ Renne and K. Schram. On August 1, 1984 he retired from the university at the age of 68. Between 1937 and 1988 he published 54 scientific articles. In 1988 he published his last (with Th Ruygrok) in the Journal of Statistical Physics, titled ''On the energy per particle in three- and four-dimensional Wigner lattices''.

Footnotes

References

* Verbal information from Mrs A. Nijboer-Wildeman.
Catalogus professorum Academiae Rheno-traiectinae

Ias.edu/people/cos/frontpage/n?page=3
* Van Kampen, N.G. ''In memoriam Ben Nijboer''. In: Fylakra (FYsisch LAboratorium KRAnt) personeelsblad rond de Utrechtse Fysica. 1999 * N.G.van Kampen, Levensbericht L.C.P. van Hove, in:Levensberichten en herdenkingen, 1992, Amsterdam, pp. 21–26 * Meijer, Paul H.E. (ed.). ''Views of a physicist''. Selected papers of N.G. van Kampen. London, 2000. * Nijboer, B.R.A. en Bouwkamp, C.J. ''Bemerkungen über Feldstarkeabhängigkeit der dialektrischen Konstante und Kerneffekt'', Physica 4 (1937) * Nijboer, B.R.A. ''The diffraction theory of aberrations''. Proefschrift. Groningen, 1942 * Nijboer, B.R.A. ''Electronen en nucleonen, de bouwstenen der materie''. Amsterdam, 1956 * Nijboer, B.R.A. ''Aard en uitwerking van het kernwapen''. In B.V.A. Röling (red.), Wereldpolitiek en A.B.C.-wapens. Leiden, 1962. p. 33-44 * Nijboer, B.R.A. ''Bewapeningswedloop en ontwapeningspogingen''. In B.V.A. Röling (red.), Wereldpolitiek en A.B.C.-wapens. Leiden, 1962. p. 57-68 * Nijboer, B.R.A. ''50 jaar natuurkunde. Afscheidscollege Prof. Dr. B.R.A. Nijboer''. Utrecht, 1984. Manuscript. * Placzek, G., Nijboer, B.R.A. en Van Hove, L, ''Effect of Short Wavelength Interference on Neutron Scattering by Dense Systems of Heavy Nuclei''. Phys. Rev. 82, 392–403 (1951) * Rotblat, J. ''Science and World Affairs. History of the Pugwash Conferences''. London, 1962 * Ruygrok, Th.W. en Nijboer, B.R.A. ''On the energy per particle in three- and four-dimensional Wigner lattices''. Journal of Statistical Physics 53 (361), 1988

External links

Dissertation

Samenwerking met Van Hove in Princeton

Institute for Advanced Study Princeton - History

Nijboer-Zernike theory

Extended Nijboer-Zernike theory

Ben Nijboer in Princeton: SIR RUDOLF PEIERLS - Selected Private and Scientific Correspondence - Volume 2 © World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.: p. 239

Pugwash conferences on Science and World Affairs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nijboer, Ben Dutch anti-war activists 20th-century Dutch physicists Dutch theoretical physicists Academic staff of Utrecht University University of Groningen alumni 1915 births 1999 deaths People from Meppel