Wetenschap tussen universiteit en industrie: De experimentele natuurkunde in Utrecht onder W. H. Julius en L. S. Ornstein, 1896–1940 by H. G. Heijmans

Abstract

technology and culture Book Reviews 383 as the story ofan entrepreneurial clan under the patriarchal leader­ ship of Werner von Siemens. Helmut Maier Dr. Maier is assistant professor of economic history and the history of technology at the Ruhr-Universitat Bochum. Wetenschap tussen universiteit en industrie: De experiméntele natuurkunde in Utrecht onder W. H. Julius en L. S. Omstein, 1896-1940. By H. G. Heijmans. Rotterdam: Erasmus, 1994. Pp. 242; illustrations, notes, bibliography, indexes. Hfl. 64.50. The history of the physics laboratory of the University of Utrecht provides an interesting example of the interactions of science and technology between the First and Second World Wars. Founded in 1876 and expanded after 1896 under the management of Willem Henry Julius, the laboratory quickly rose to national and interna­ tional prominence when the directorship passed in 1920 into the hands of theoretical physicist Leonard Salomon Omstein. The rea­ son for its rise in stature was essentially twofold. First, Ornstein was adept at using the special facilities of his lab for doing research on topics of immediate relevance to the development of quantum me­ chanics. Second, he was very active and resourceful in promoting collaboration between university and industry. In both ways, the rise of Ornstein’s institute clearly exemplified the growing interweaving of technology and science. Utrecht rose to the forefront of the development of quantum me­ chanics in the 1920s because its physics laboratory was exceptionally well equipped for the measurement of intensities of spectral lines. It had acquired a special expertise in photometry. Most of the instru­ ments used were designed by personnel of the institute itself and produced in cooperation with the Delft instrument-making firm P. J. Kipp and Zonen. Research on atomic physics, however, constituted only 30 percent of all scientific publications produced by Ornstein and his staff. The work conducted at the institute covered an extremely wide range of subjects, including liquid crystals, electric arcs, and gas discharge phenomena as well as optical properties of thin metal layers and topics from physiology and microbiology. Part of this research was carried out at the request of public corporations and private firms or organizations. Ornstein was quite willing to employ the resources of his lab for applied and technical research whenever demand arose, and he used every effort to expand his network in the world of government and industry. As a result of this policy of openness, Ornstein was able not only to attract additional funds for his institute and increase the size of its staff but also to improve employment 384 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE opportunities for his students. Of the ninety-four students who com­ pleted Ph.D. dissertations between 1918 and 1940 under the supervi­ sion of Ornstein (a Dutch record), no less than forty-two found a job in industry. Eighteen of them entered the service of Philips, a large firm specializing in the making of lighting and electric equip­ ment. Thus, physics research in Utrecht generated a feedback to industry in various ways. The rise of the physics laboratory in Utrecht and its relations to the growth ofindustry are the subject ofthis book by H. G. Heijmans, which was submited in 1994 as a Ph.D. dissertation at the very univer­ sity whereJulius and Ornstein worked. This is not an irrelevant coin­ cidence. Heijmans’s prime purpose was to redress the balance in the picture of Dutch science in its so-called “second golden age” (ca. 1875-1940), which is still heavily biased toward the role of the universities of Leiden and Amsterdam. Although Utrecht could boast no Lorentz, Kamerlingh Onnes, Ehrenfest, Zeeman, or Van der Waals, the activities in Julius’s and Ornstein’s laboratory merit close attention as well, Heijmans argues, because they show that the research profile ofDutch physics was much broader and more varied than the prevailing view among historians and physicists suggests. Not every physicist in Holland warmed to thermodynamics. Taking the variety of topics studied at university laboratories in the Nether­ lands into account, he concludes, it is open to doubt whether there has been some “national style” in Dutch physics research at all. Heijman’s book is grounded on solid research. Besides reading...