Hendrik Casimir

Hendrik Brugt Gerhard Casimir ( born July 15, 1909 in The Hague; † 4 May 2000 Heeze ) was a Dutch physicist.

Casimir obtained in 1931 a PhD from Leiden University. After he had worked with Niels Bohr in Copenhagen and Wolfgang Pauli in Zurich, he joined the Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, a, where he worked until the end of his work.

He is best known for the Casimir effect, which he predicted in 1948 and has been demonstrated experimentally by the Sparnaay experiment in 1958. Also the Casimir operator is named after him.

Casimir was awarded many honors during his life. For example, an honorary membership in the Institute of Physics, membership in the Royal Society and the George E Pake Prize of the American Physical Society, and in 1982 the award of the Order Pour le Mérite for Arts and Sciences.

In addition, he was the president of the European Physical Society (EPS ).