Johannes Bosscha Jr. (18 November 1831 – 15 April 1911) was a Dutch physicist.
Bosscha came from a family long known for their academic achievements. His great-grandfather and grandfather were classical scholars. His father,
Johannes Bosscha Sr. (1797–1874), was a professor of history and literature and also was minister of church-state relationships in two governments (1853–1861).
From 1844–1848 Johannes Jr. attended a Latin school in Amsterdam, after which he enrolled at
Leiden University. In 1854 he obtained his doctoral degree (promotor
Pieter Rijke
Petrus Leonardus Rijke (11 July 1812 – 7 April 1899) was a Dutch physicist, and a professor in experimental physics at the University of Leiden. Rijke spent his scientific career exploring the physics of electricity, and is known for the Rijke t ...
) with a thesis on
galvanometry. After a brief sojourn in Berlin he returned to the physics department in Leiden.
Here he made important investigations on galvanic polarization and the rapidity of sound waves. He initiated the mechanical theory of
electrolysis, and he was one of the first (1855) to suggest the possibility of sending two messages simultaneously over the same wire. In 1858 he published "Conservation of Energy in Galvanic Currents", in which he applied the recently formulated
first law of thermodynamics
The first law of thermodynamics is a formulation of the law of conservation of energy, adapted for thermodynamic processes. It distinguishes in principle two forms of energy transfer, heat and thermodynamic work for a system of a constant amou ...
to electrical phenomena.
In 1860, Boscha became chair of natural sciences at the
Koninklijke Militaire Academie
The Royal Military Academy ( nl, Koninklijke Militaire Academie or ''KMA'') is the service academy for the Dutch Army, the Dutch Air Force and the Royal Marechaussee. Located in Breda, Southern Netherlands, the KMA has trained future office ...
in
Breda and in 1863 became a member of the
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In that year
Thorbecke
Johan Rudolph Thorbecke (14 January 1798 – 4 June 1872) was a Dutch liberal statesman, one of the most important Dutch politicians of the 19th century. Thorbecke is best known for heading the commission that drafted the revision of the Consti ...
appointed him as inspector of secondary education for the southern part of the country, in which capacity he had much influence on Thorbecke's newly introduced schooling system, insisting, for example, on specialized classrooms for physics and chemistry. In 1873 he accepted the chair of the physics department at the Polytechnic School in
Delft, which would turn into the
Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Delft), also known as TU Delft, is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. As of 2022 it is ranked by QS World University Rankings among ...
. In 1875, he published a three-volume ''Leerboek der natuurkunde'' (Textbook of Physics) in which no higher math was used and which saw many editions.
In 1878 Boscha became director of the Polytechnic School.
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (21 September 1853 – 21 February 1926) was a Dutch physicist and Nobel laureate. He exploited the Hampson–Linde cycle to investigate how materials behave when cooled to nearly absolute zero and later to liquefy heliu ...
was his assistant from 1878 to 1882, after which Kamerlingh Onnes became professor at Leiden University. In 1885 Boscha needed to resign as director because of poor health.
His ''Verspreide Geschriften'' (Diverse Writings) were published in three volumes (Leyden, 1902).
Personal life
In 1855 he married Paulina Emilia Kerkhoven in the town of
Voorst
Voorst () is a municipality and a town in the eastern Netherlands.
Population centres
* Appen (near a wood where nice walks can be taken)
* Bussloo (with a recreation centre with a small lake and beach)
* De Kar (near a motorway junction (A1, ...
. They had four daughters and two sons. The
Bosscha Observatory on
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
has been named after his son
Karel Albert Rudolf Bosscha (1865–1928), who contributed much to the technical development of Indonesia.
References
Sources
*
Klaas van Berkel Klaas van Berkel (born 24 July 1953) is a Dutch historian, historian of science, and professor of Modern History at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, known from his work on the history of science in the Netherlands, particularly the w ...
, Albert van Helden & L.C. Palm
A History of Science in the Netherlands BRILL 1999, pp. 425–6.
*
* W.G. Stam
''Johannes Bosscha Jr. (1831-1911) and the development of the field of physics in the Netherlands in the second half of the 19th century''(2017)
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bosscha, Johannes
1831 births
1911 deaths
19th-century Dutch physicists
People from Breda
Leiden University alumni
Academic staff of the Delft University of Technology
Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences