Arie Bijl (

Maassluis Maassluis () is a city in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The municipality had a population of in and covered of which was water. It received city rights in 1811. History Maassluis was founded circa 1340 as a se ...

, 23 December 1908 –

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

Neuengamme Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, th ...

, 2 January 1945) was a Dutch theoretical physicist and resistance man. Arie Bijl was the youngest child of Simon Bijl (1869–1951), owner of a milk factory, and Willemijntje van der Lelij (1873–1944). Because in the Bijl family there was an eye for the extraordinary gift of Arie and his older brother Jaap (who became a pedagogue), not only the parents, but also the other children in the family contributed financially to the study of the two brothers. Arie Bijl studied mathematics and physics at Leiden University and obtained his PhD there on 28 April 1938 from

Hendrik Kramers Hendrik Anthony "Hans" Kramers (17 December 1894 – 24 April 1952) was a Dutch physicist who worked with Niels Bohr to understand how electromagnetic waves interact with matter and made important contributions to quantum mechanics and statistical ...

on the thesis '' Discontinuities in the energy and specific heat ''. After his PhD, he remained affiliated with Leiden University and conducted research on liquid helium, among other things. A publication by him in 1940 led to a wave function developed by him now known as the Bijl-Dingle-Jastrow wave function that is still used. Also the Bijl-

Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superflu ...

spectrum and the Bijl-Jastrow factor are named after him. In the crisis years Arie Bijl was a member of a group of scientists around the future Nobel laureate

Jan Tinbergen Jan Tinbergen (; ; 12 April 19039 June 1994) was a Dutch economist who was awarded the first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969, which he shared with Ragnar Frisch for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of ...

. The reason was that Tinbergen wanted to apply physical principles to economic problems. Bijl corresponded about economics with

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

and wrote the book ''Werkgelegenheidspolitiek: ordening in een vrije economie'' (Employment politics: order in a free economy) that was posthumously published by De Arbeiderspers in 1953 with a foreword by Tinbergen. In the Second World War he kept persecuted fellow physicists from Eastern Europe, including the Polish Jew Julius Podolanski (1905-1955), hidden in his windmill "De Kameraad" in

Nederhorst den Berg Nederhorst den Berg () is a village in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. It lies about 8 km northwest of Hilversum in the Vechtstreek area, near the Vecht river. Until 1 January 2002, it was a separate municipality; it is now part ...

. This mill burned down due to carelessness by one of the people in hiding. On 7 January 1944, he married in

Oegstgeest Oegstgeest () is a town and municipality in the province of South Holland in the western Netherlands. Its population was in . Etymology The portion ''geest'' in the name refers to the geest lands, which were excavated in the seventeenth cent ...

with Agnes Beket. In the same year, the Germans discovered him because a member of the resistance had a list of names with him during a check. Arie Bijl was transferred via Scheveningen to

Amersfoort concentration camp Kamp Amersfoort ( nl, Kamp Amersfoort, german: Durchgangslager Amersfoort) was a Nazi concentration camp near the city of Amersfoort, the Netherlands. The official name was "Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Amersfoort", P.D.A. or Amersfoort Police T ...

and from there to the

Neuengamme concentration camp Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, th ...

near Hamburg where he arrived on 14 October 1944. Due to the extremely poor conditions in the camp, he died after just over two months, according to the camp administration to a gastrointestinal catarrh.

Trivia

a street was named after him, the Arie Bijlhof.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bijl, Arie 1908 births 1945 deaths Dutch civilians killed in World War II 20th-century Dutch physicists Dutch resistance members Leiden University alumni People from Maassluis People who died in Neuengamme concentration camp Theoretical physicists Resistance members who died in Nazi concentration camps