Pieter Rijke

Career In 1835, Rijke was appointed Professor of Physics at the Royal Athenaeum in Maastricht. In 1845, he became an extraordinary professor, and in 1854 was promoted to Full Professor of Physics at Leiden University. There, he started a physics laboratory with a large collection of scientific instruments. His most notable students were Hendrik Lorentz and Johannes van der Waals, who would win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1902 and 1910, respectively.

Rijke retired in 1882, and was succeeded by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes as Professor of Experimental Physics at Leiden University.

Rijke died on 7 April 1899 in Leiden at the age of 86.

Rijke became a Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1863.

Publications