Dirk ter Haar
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Dirk ter Haar (Oosterwolde, 19 April 1919 - Drachten, 3 September 2002) was a English-Dutch physicist.
Dirk ter Haar (Dr, B.Sc., M.Sc., MA, D.Sc., FRSE) studied physics at Leiden University, was research fellow of Niels Bohr in Copenhagen en received his PhD in Leiden from Hendrik Kramers on a dissertation on the origin of the solar system. In 1949 he became professor in physics at the University of St. Andrews and in 1950 he emigrated to England, where he later became a English citizen. He became professor in Theoretical Physics at Magdalen College of the University of Oxford.
Many prominent scientists studied under Ter Haar, amongst which Anthony Leggett, winner of the Nobelprize in Physics in 2003.
He wrote numerous books on physics amongst which Elements of Statistical Mechanics. In addition, he wrote a book on Kramers and was reviewer for Physics Letters (later Physics Letters A). In 1984 the book Essays in Theoretical Physics, in honour of Dirk ter Haar was published in honour of his work in statistical physics and kwantummechanics.
In 1949 Dirk ter Haar married Christine Janet Lound and together they had two sons and a daughter.
[edit] Works
- D. ter Haar, Elements of Statistical Mechanics. London: Constable (1954). 2ed (1966) New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston; 3ed (1995) Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann
- D. ter Haar and H. Wergeland, Elements of Thermodynamics, Addison-Wesley, 1960
- D. ter Haar, Elements of Hamiltonian Mechanics, Pergamon Press, Oxford.
- D. ter Haar, The Old Quantum Theory, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1967.
- D. ter Haar, Lectures on Selected Topics in Statistical Mechanics, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1977.
- D. ter Haar, Master of Modern Physics. The Scientific Contributions of H. A. Kramers, Princeton Uni. Press, 1998.
