Karel Frederik Niessen (1895 in

Velsen Velsen () is a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is located on both sides of the North Sea Canal. On the north side of the North Sea Canal there is a major steel plant, Tata Steel IJmuiden, formerly known as ...

– 1967) was a Dutch theoretical physicist who made contributions to

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

and is known for the Pauli–Niessen model.

Education

Niessen began his studies in physics at the

University of Utrecht Utrecht University (UU; , formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2023, it had an enrollment of 39,769 students, a ...

in 1914. In 1922, he received his doctorate under L. S. Ornstein. He was an assistant at the University from 1921 to 1928, except for his postdoctoral study and research at the

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

under

Arnold Sommerfeld Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld (; 5 December 1868 – 26 April 1951) was a German Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who pioneered developments in Atomic physics, atomic and Quantum mechanics, quantum physics, and also educated and ...

, 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 The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

.Author Catalog: Niessen
– American Philosophical Society In 1922, Niessen’s doctoral thesis, as well as Wolfgang Pauli’s extended doctoral thesis, dealt with the hydrogen molecule ion in the Bohr–Sommerfeld framework. Their work is referred to as the Pauli-Niessen model. Their works helped to show the inadequacy of the old quantum mechanics, which gave physicists the impetus to explore new paths which led to the

matrix mechanics Matrix mechanics is a formulation of quantum mechanics created by Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, and Pascual Jordan in 1925. It was the first conceptually autonomous and logically consistent formulation of quantum mechanics. Its account of quantum ...

formulation of

Werner Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg (; ; 5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist, one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics and a principal scientist in the German nuclear program during World War II. He pub ...

and

Max Born Max Born (; 11 December 1882 – 5 January 1970) was a German-British theoretical physicist who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics, and supervised the work of a ...

in 1925 and the

wave mechanics Wave mechanics may refer to: * the mechanics of waves * the application of the quantum wave equation, especially in position and momentum spaces * the resonant interaction of three or more waves, which includes the "three-wave equation" See al ...

formulation by

Erwin Schrödinger Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger ( ; ; 12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961), sometimes written as or , was an Austrian-Irish theoretical physicist who developed fundamental results in quantum field theory, quantum theory. In particul ...

in 1926, which were shown to be equivalent.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. nglish translation in Gunter Ludwig ''Wave Mechanics'' 127-150 (Pergamon Press, 1968) /ref>

Career

Upon Niessen’s return to the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

in 1929, he took a lifelong position as a theoretical physicist at Philips Electronics in

Eindhoven Eindhoven ( ; ) is a city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, located in the southern Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant, of which it is the largest municipality, and is also locat ...

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 Helmut Rechenberg (November 6, 1937, in Berlin – November 10, 2016, in Munich) was a German physicist and science historian. Biography Education Rechenberg studied mathematics, physics and astronomy at the University of Munich and graduat ...

''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)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Niessen, Karel 1895 births 1967 deaths 20th-century Dutch physicists Quantum physicists Utrecht University alumni People from Velsen