Hans Kramers
Dutch physicist (1894–1952)
Hendrik Anthony "Hans" Kramers (17 December 1894 – 24 April 1952) was a Dutch physicist who worked with Niels Bohr to understand how electromagnetic waves interact with matter and made important contributions to quantum mechanics and statistical physics.
Background and education
Hans Kramers was born on 17 December 1894 in Rotterdam. the son of Hendrik Kramers, a physician, and Jeanne Susanne Breukelman.
In 1912 Hans finished secondary education (HBS) in Rotterdam, and studied mathematics and physics at the University of Leiden, where he obtained a master's degree in 1916. Kramers wanted to obtain foreign experience during his doctoral research, but his first choice of supervisor, Max Born in Göttingen, was not reachable because of the First World War. Because Denmark was neutral in this war, as was the Netherlands, he travelled (by ship, overland was impossible) to Copenhagen, where he visited unannounced the then still relatively unknown Niels Bohr. Bohr took him on as a Ph.D. candidate and Kramers prepared his dissertation under Bohr's direction. Although Kramers did most of his doctoral research (on intensities of atomic transitions) in Copenhagen, he obtained his formal Ph.D. under Ehrenfest in Leiden, on 8 May 1919.
Kramers enjoyed music, and played cello and piano.
Academic career
He worked for almost ten years in Bohr's group, becoming an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen.
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