Dutch physicist, born in 1853. He studied mathematics and physics in his native town, Groningen, where in 1879 he took his doctor’s degree on presenting a dissertation entitled New Proofs of the Earth’s Rotation. He became professor at Leiden in 1882, and devoted himself especially to the study of properties of matter at low temperatures. As director of the Cryogeen Laboratory, founded by him at Leiden, he succeeded, in 1908, in liquefying helium. In 1913 the Nobel prize for physics was conferred upon him. His published work includes Algemeene Theorie der Vloeistoffen (General Theory of the Fluids, 1881).
See J. P. Kuenen, De Toekenning van den Nobelprys aan H. Kamerlingh Onnes (Chemisch Weekblad, 1913).
