Cornelis Jan Bakker (11 March 1904 – 23 April 1960) was a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

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 second Director General of CERN. He was also a member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

Biography

Bakker studied

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

under

Pieter Zeeman Pieter Zeeman (; 25 May 1865 – 9 October 1943) was a Dutch physicist who shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Hendrik Lorentz for his discovery of the Zeeman effect. Childhood and youth Pieter Zeeman was born in Zonnemaire, a small town ...

. In 1931 he obtained his doctorate. His doctoral thesis dealt with the effects of

Zeeman effect The Zeeman effect (; ) is the effect of splitting of a spectral line into several components in the presence of a static magnetic field. It is named after the Dutch physicist Pieter Zeeman, who discovered it in 1896 and received a Nobel priz ...

spectral line A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to iden ...

s of

noble gas The noble gases (historically also the inert gases; sometimes referred to as aerogens) make up a class of chemical elements with similar properties; under standard conditions, they are all odorless, colorless, monatomic gases with very low ch ...

es. The next year he spent at the Imperial College of Science in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, where he continued his research in the area of spectroscopy. In 1933 he worked for the scientific department of

Philips 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 i ...

in Eindhoven, where he was active in the field of

wireless technology Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...

. In the following his interest in

nuclear physics Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

grow and he started during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

in cooperation with August Heyn with the development of a

cyclotron A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Jan ...

for Philips. After the war Bakker replaced Gorter as a professor of physics and director of the Zeeman Laboratory at the

in 1946. In addition, he became director of the ''Institute for Nuclear Physics'' of

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

and the company

, which, sponsored by the ''

Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research The Dutch Research Council (NWO, Dutch: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek) is the national research council of the Netherlands. NWO funds thousands of top researchers at universities and institutes and steers the course o ...

'' (NWO), formed the center of nuclear physics research in the Netherlands. In 1951, Bakker was invited by Professor Pierre Auger (then director of the scientific department of

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

) to join a group of eight experts which should make plans about the future CERN. He is considered one of the founders of the CERN. A year later (1952) he became director of a group responsible for the design and construction of the '' Synchro-Cyclotron (CERN)'' (SC). Then he was appointed as director of the Synchro-Cyclotron department. In 1952 Bakker became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, three years later he became foreign member. In 1955, he replaced

Felix Bloch Felix Bloch (23 October 1905 – 10 September 1983) was a Swiss-American physicist and Nobel physics laureate who worked mainly in the U.S. He and Edward Mills Purcell were awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics for "their development of new ...

as the Director General of the CERN. He was then 5 years in office until he died in 1960 in a plane crash. During his funeral Bakker's work and commitment to CERN and science was repeatedly touted by politicians and researchers, such as

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of t ...

(his successor as director general) or

Jo Cals Jozef Maria Laurens Theo "Jo" Cals (18 July 1914 – 30 December 1971) was a Dutch politician of the defunct Catholic People's Party (KVP) now the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party and jurist who served as Prime Minister of the Netherland ...

. In addition, he was awarded the

Order of the Netherlands Lion The Order of the Netherlands Lion, also known as the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands ( nl, De Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw, french: L'Ordre du Lion Néerlandais) is a Dutch order of chivalry founded by King William I of the Netherlands on ...

by the former Queen of the Netherlands

Juliana Juliana (variants Julianna, Giuliana, Iuliana, Yuliana, etc) is a feminine given name which is the feminine version of the Roman name Julianus. Juliana or Giuliana was the name of a number of early saints, notably Saint Julian the Hospitaller, wh ...

References

External links

''CERN Courier, Farewell to Prof. Bakker''

''CERN Courier, In memory of Prof. Bakker''

''Professor C.J. Bakker'' (siehe PDF)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bakker, Cornelis 1904 births 1960 deaths 20th-century Dutch physicists People associated with CERN Philips employees Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Scientists from Amsterdam University of Amsterdam alumni Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam