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Karel Frederik Niessen (1895 in Velsen – 1967) was a Dutch theoretical physicist who made contributions to quantum mechanics and is known for the Pauli–Niessen model.


Education

Niessen began his studies in physics at the University of Utrecht 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 or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...
under
Arnold Sommerfeld Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld, (; 5 December 1868 – 26 April 1951) was a German theoretical physicist who pioneered developments in atomic and quantum physics, and also educated and mentored many students for the new era of theoretica ...
, 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.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 The dihydrogen cation or hydrogen molecular ion is a cation (positive ion) with formula . It consists of two hydrogen nuclei ( protons) sharing a single electron. It is the simplest molecular ion. The ion can be formed from the ionization of a ...
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 formulation of quantum mechanics by Werner Heisenberg and
Max Born Max Born (; 11 December 1882 – 5 January 1970) was a German physicist and mathematician 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 n ...
in 1925 and the wave mechanics formulation by Erwin Schrödinger 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 in 1929, he took a lifelong position as a theoretical physicist at Philips Electronics in
Eindhoven Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022,


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 ''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