Centenary of liquid helium
On July 10, 1908 Heike Kamerlingh Onnes liquified helium for the first time,
and he received the
Nobel prize for this work.
The celebration of the centenary of liquid helium will begin in
Conference Excursion
Naturally, we will go to the place where it all began,
the former Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, presently called the Kamerlingh Onnes
Building.
This will be our central meeting point. The building was thoroughly
reconstructed after the physics department left this historical place in 1998, and it now
houses the Faculty of Law of the Leiden University. Historical photographs will be
on display near the location that for several decades was the coldest spot on earth. Most
of the original, historical equipment, such as the
first liquefier and the ‘big
magnet’, has been moved to the Museum Boerhaave.
This museum - whose director, Dirk van Delft, wrote the biography of Kamerlingh
Onnes - will be organizing a unique
exposition “The quest for absolute zero”; it will exclusively be open to the
conference participants on our excursion day. There will also be an
exposition in the
So you can wander through town and taste the atmosphere of the beautiful city center, visit museums, or the oldest Hortus Botanicus in the world, but you could also stay in the Kamerlingh Onnes Building to listen to various talks about the (scientific) life of Heike Kamerlingh Onnes and his contemporaries Johannes Diderik van de Waals and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz.
Depending on the weather the excursion will be concluded with a reception in the Kamerlingh Onnes Building or in the garden of the historic former University Library,
hosted by the City of
Registration for the Conference Excursion
To join the excursion you should register, preferably when
you register for the conference. The number of participants we can handle is
large, but limited. The excursion fee is € 35 per person, for which we offer
you: bus transportation to
More information will follow in due time on this web page.