Gerardus J. Sizoo Gerardus J. Sizoo Gerardus Johannes Sizoo (8 November 1900 – 4 January 1994) was the first professor of physics at the Vrije Universiteit. He is notable for the establishment and development of the applied physics laboratory in 1930 and the establishment of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at the Vrije Universiteit. His doctoral research explored the phenomenon of superconductivity at the University of Leiden, following the lead of Heike Kamerlingh Onnes and Wander Johannes de Haas. He completed his PhD in 1926, with a thesis entitled: "Onderzoekingen over den suprageleidenden toestand van metalen," under Wander Johannes de Haas. In
History of thermodynamics years later by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, who based it on the Greek word "enthalpein" meaning "to warm". Building on these foundations, those as Lars Onsager, Erwin Schrödinger, and Ilya Prigogine, and others, functioned to bring these engine "concepts" into the thoroughfare of almost every modern-day branch of science. The idea that heat is a form of motion is perhaps an ancient one and is certainly discussed by Francis Bacon in 1620 in his "Novum Organum". The first written scientific reflection on the microscopic nature of heat is probably to be found in a work by Mikhail Lomonosov, in which he