It's Cold in Leiden This Time of Year

[beamjockey]

I've just noticed that Thursday, 10 July, is the 100th anniversary of the first liquefaction of helium. It happened in Leiden, in Heike Kammerlingh Onnes's lab.

In a good article in the March 2008 Physics Today, Dirk van Delft portrays the rivalry between Kammerlingh Onnes and James Dewar of Cambridge (who had liquefied hydrogen, and who invented the invaluable Dewar flask) in the suspenseful race to obtain the first drop of liquid helium.
(PDF of article here.)

Liquid helium is, of course, the key to exploring temperatures near absolute zero. It's been essential to a great variety of physics experiments, and we use it every day in the Tevatron, MRI magnets, and other superconducting devices.

I don't know the best way to celebrate. Sing in a high-pitched voice. Maybe drink something cold.

Comments

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

Or perhaps get a wart removed by freezing?

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

Both already done, as it happens.

Have a slice of this nice flash-frozen cake.

[erik]

just be cool.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Unrelated to this post, but check out my article in Some Fantastic.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Crawl up the wall monoatomically?

[martin-wisse.livejournal.com]

I'm totally nicking this for my blog tomorrow.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

We used to drive past a helium plant in Texas every now and then. I suppose they made it by crushing Upsidaisium. Pretty convenient for the Goodyear Blimp, which we used to see all the time in Houston.

helium

[jimf42.livejournal.com]

You definitely need an office party with balloons...

[maiac.livejournal.com]

I'd like to celebrate by taking a ride in a helium balloon.

Years ago, when Bob Edwards was host of Morning Edition, somebody sent him a letter: the writer was a farmer who often listened to Morning Edition while using his tractor, and since Edwards' voice was almost exactly the same pitch as the tractor's rumble, he often couldn't hear was Edwards was saying. He respectfully asked, therefore, if Edwards could raise the pitch just a little when he spoke.

Edwards replied after inhaling helium.

[charlie-meadows.livejournal.com]

...and I am reading this a bit past the centennial of a related Kammerlingh Onnes event, the discovery of superconductivity in mercury (8 April).