Gilles Holst
Gilles Holst (20 March 1886 – 11 October 1968)[1] was a Dutch physicist, known worldwide for his invention in 1932 of the low-pressure sodium lamp.
Early life[]
His father was a manager of a shipyard. In 1904 he went to ETH Zurich to study mechanical engineering, changing after a year to mathematics and physics.
Career[]
He worked with Balthasar van der Pol, known for the Van der Pol oscillator, and Frans Michel Penning, known for Penning ionization and the Penning mixture. In 1908 he became a geprüfter Fachlehrer, or qualified teacher. And most important, he became the science director of the Philips Physics Laboratory in Eindhoven.
In 1909 he became an assistant to Heike Kamerlingh Onnes at Leiden University. At Leiden, it is believed that he was the first to witness the phenomenon of superconductivity.
The was first awarded in 1939.
Personal life[]
He died in Holland at the age of 82.
References[]
External links[]
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- 1886 births
- 1968 deaths
- 20th-century Dutch physicists
- ETH Zurich alumni
- Leiden University faculty
- Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Superconductivity