History

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The Kramers chair of Theoretical Physics

Professor Hendrik Anthony Kramers

The Dutch scientist HENDRIK ANTHONY KRAMERS was born in 1894 and studied physics in Leiden with Ehrenfest. In 1916 he became a student of Niels Bohr and later his trusted assistant and collaborator. It was said that Kramers was the representative of Bohr on earth. He was deeply involved with the early development of quantum mechanics and wrote in 1925 with Heisenberg the seminal paper on scattering of light by atoms. In 1926 he moved to Utrecht to take the chair of theoretical physics.
Kramers (Photo NTvN-1996/6) was the first in the Netherlands to teach the new quantum mechanics. In a series of papers he produced a number of applications of it, some of which became classics, such as his derivation of the zero point energy 1/2hn. Others dealt with molecules and ions, and with magnetism. At the same time as Kronig he derived the famous dispersion relations.In 1934 he was selected as the successor to Ehrenfest in Leiden, on the prestigious chair of Lorentz, where he wrote a remarkable textbook on quantum mechanics. He also got involved with statistical mechanics and in 1940 he published a paper on unimolecular chemical reactions, which was the subject of two conferences half a century later. At the Van der Waals conference in 1937 he saved the situation by formulating the thermodynamic limit. All his life he struggled with the interaction between particles and light; at the Shelter Island conference in 1946 he launched the idea of renormalisation, without which no field theory is possible. Yet this formal solution did not satisfy him, but he never found a better one.
Kramers loved music and literature, but above all physics. He did research because he was fascinated by it, not for public acclaim. His colleagues and students knew that he was a great man, but his fame penetrated only slowly to the outside world. Yet after the war he was elected as chairman of the technical subcommittee of the International Atomic Energy Commission. He also organized the building of a nuclear reactor using Dutch uranium and Norwegian heavy water, and he was at the cradle of the FOM.

Prof.dr. N.G. van Kampen
January 2000

Inauguration of the Kramers Chair

When in 1975 the University of Utrecht founded the Kramers Chair for Theoretical Physics we were fortunate to find Professor Eugene P. Wigner (1902-1995) from the University at Princeton willing to accept the first invitation. His appointment was from Sept. 1, 1975 to Dec. 1, 1975, but due to his wife's health problem he could be present for only a part of this period. He arrived on October 6 and gave an inaugural lecture on the work of Kramers (October 13, 1975). Then he started a lecture course on the General Principles in Physics, in particular of course Symmetry Principles.

He was amazingly active and generously contributed to the scientific life at the Institute for Theoretical Physics. Numerous were the discussions on various aspects of physics and on the subjects that the members of the Institute were concerned with. He made a lasting impression on those who were there at the time. In addition he was invited for a number of talks at other universities in Holland and elsewhere. He even met with several authorities on the subject of Civil Defense. His impressive knowledge and unassuming personality are remembered by all those who were present at the time.

Occupants of the Kramers Chair                        Course title

R.D. Kamien (University of Pennsylvania, 2023)Geometric and Topological Methods in Materials

M. Vasiliev (Lebedev Physical Institute, 2014)

Higher-Spin Gauge Theory

B. Evans (Univ. of Bristol, UK, 2011)

Density Functional Theory: Classical and Quantum

W.G. Unruh (Univ. of British Columbia, 2010)

Quantum fields in spacetimes

A.H. MacDonald (UT Austin, 2008)

Quantum Hall Bilayers and Exciton Condensation

S. Carlip (Univ. of California, Davis, 2007)

Introduction to Quantum Gravity

A.O. Caldeira (Campinas, Brasil, 2007)

Macroscopic quantum phenomena and quantum dissipation

A.V. Ashtekar (Penn State Univ., 2006)

Black holes in fundamental physics

P. Grassberger (Julich, 2005)

Phase transitions and anomalous scaling in non-equilibrium systems

P. Wiegmann (Univ. of Chicago, 2004)

Random matrix theory

J.-P. Hansen (Cambridge, 2003)

Statistical mechanics of fluid interfaces

A. Schwimmer (Weizmann Inst., 2003)

Anomalies in quantum field theory and string theory

M. den Nijs (Univ. of Washington, 2002)

Scale invariance and critical phenomena in interfaces far from and in thermal equilibrium

B. Spivak (Seattle, 2001)

Conductors, superconductors and disorder - many body systems

D. Olive (Swansea, 2000)

 

B. Widom (Cornell, 1999)

 

I. Goldhirsch (Tel Aviv, 1998)

 

R.J. Silbey (Boston, 1997)

 

E. Rabinovici (Jerusalem, 1996)

 

L.D. Faddeev (Moscow, 1995)

 

J.R. Dorfman (Maryland, 1994)

 

J. Smith (Stony Brook, 1993)

 

G. Gibbons (Cambridge, 1992)

 

Yu.A. Simonov (Moscow, 1991)

 

V.J. Emery (Brookhaven, 1991)

 

P. van Nieuwenhuizen (Stony Brook, 1989/90)

 

M.V. Berry (Bristol, 1980/81)

 

M. Kac (Rockefeller, 1980)

 

D. ter Haar (Oxford, 1979)

 

T.T. Wu (Harvard, 1977/78)

 

M. Dresden (Stony Brook, 1976)

 

E.P. Wigner (Princeton,1975)

 

 

History of the ITP

The University at Utrecht has harbored some theoretical physicists of name: P.J.W. Debye (1912-1914), H.A. Kramers (1926-1934), G.E. Uhlenbeck (1934-1939), L. Rosenfeld (1940-1947).
L.S. Ornstein succeeded Debye in 1914 as a professor of theoretical physics. But he soon focussed himself on experimental physics when (in 1920) he was appointed as director of the physics laboratory in the Bijlhouwerstraat, Utrecht, after its previous director, W.H. Julius, fell ill and died (1925) [1]. Then Kramers became the professor of theoretical  physics. He left for Leiden in 1934 [2]. 
In those days it was normal that people worked at home if their work did not require more than pencil and paper. After the war that changed, however, and Rosenfeld's successor S.R. de Groot (1948-1953) managed to get separate lodgings, namely the ground floor of a villa on the Maliebaan. This may be regarded as the nucleus for the Institute, which matured when in 1956 L. Van Hove, who in 1954 had been appointed to the chair of theoretical physics, moved the Institute to a house on the Maliesingel. He also enlarged the staff by adding two colleagues, B.R.A. Nijboer (1950-1984) and N.G. van Kampen (1955-1984). This was a revolution in the eyes of older members of the senate, who considered one professor for physics quite enough. 
 

In 1961 Th.W. Ruijgrok became a staff member too until his retirement in 1993. In 1961 Van Hove left for CERN to become director of the Theory Division; later he was appointed Director General of CERN.   Modern particle physics entered by the appointment of M. Veltman (1966-1981) and later G. 't Hooft (1969). Also J.A. Tjon (1967), J. Groeneveld (1971-1993), M.H. Ernst (1972-2000), J.E. van Himbergen (1981), B. de Wit (1984), H. van Beijeren (1986), H.T.C. Stoof (1993), E.P. Verlinde (1993-1999), G.T. Barkema (1998), P.C.E. Stamp (2000) and F. Zhou (2000)  joined the Institute.

In the location on Maliesingel the Institute could grow untrammelled by bureaucracy and acquire international fame. Many young physicists started here on the road to science. Among the foreign visitors were M.S. Green, H.M. Nussenzweig and J.M. Deutch. An atmosphere of scientific interest prevailed, organisational issues, such as who would teach what, were easily dealt with during tea time.

In 1974 the Institute moved to De Uithof. Thanks to the "Kramers Chair" (inaugurated 1975) a succession of visitors arrived to enliven the Institute: E.P. Wigner, M. Berry, M. Kac and M. Dresden, to name a few. They form an invaluable link with the international world of physics. The research covers various aspects of modern statistical mechanics and condensed matter, light nuclei, and field theory. Several part-time professors maintain the contact with other universities.
In 1975 the first Triangle Meeting Paris-Rome-Utrecht was organized. The initiatior of the consolidation of this cooperation was M. Veltman. The meetings have expanded and were in later years also held in Leuven, Heraklion and Copenhagen. In 1999 Utrecht organized the XXIInd Triangle.
In 1998 the Faculty of Physics and Astonomy founded the Spinoza Institute. E.P. Verlinde and G. 't Hooft received an appointment in this newly created center of activities in interdisciplinary fields of physics.
G. 't Hooft and M. Veltman were Nobel Laureates in 1999 for elucidating the quantum structure of  electroweak interactions in physics. With this crown on their work the Institute for Theoretical Physics walked into the new millennium.

Source: ITP-UU

[1] See: `Erflaters', Ublad/38 24-6-99.
[2] See: De Utrechtse Universiteit, Deel II: 1815-1936, Utrecht" Oosthoek's, 1937. Dr. W.J.H. Moll, ``Natuurkunde'', p. 289-290.
 

Former colleagues

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