Hendrik Anthony Kramers

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Hendrik Anthony Kramers (Rotterdam, February 2, 1894 – Oegstgeest, April 24, 1952) was a Dutch physicist. He was the son of Hendrik Kramers, a physician, and Jeanne Susanne Breukelman. On October 25, 1920 he was married to Anna Petersen. They had three daughters and one son.

In 1912 he finished highschool in Rotterdam, and studied mathematics and physics at the University of Leiden, where he obtained a master's degree in 1916. In that year he transferred to Copenhagen, where he prepared his dissertation under Niels Bohr. On May 8, 1919 he obtained his Ph.D. in Leiden.

He was one of the founders of the Mathematisch Centrum in Amsterdam. He won the Lorentz Medal in 1947 and Hughes Medal in 1951.

Kramers lends his name to the Kramers crater on the Moon, the Kramers-Heisenberg formula, the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approximation, the Kramers-Kronig relation, Kramers-Wannier duality and Kramers' degeneracy theorem.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hendrik Anthony Kramers

• H.B.G. Casimir, Kramers, Hendrik Anthony (1894-1952), in Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland. ) (in Dutch)
• J.M. Romein, Hendrik Anthony Kramers, in: Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden, 1951-1953, pag. 83-91.