Leiden University at the university. The learning and reputation of Jacobus Gronovius, Herman Boerhaave, Tiberius Hemsterhuis and David Ruhnken, among others, enabled Leiden to maintain its reputation for excellence down to the end of the 18th century. At the end of the nineteenth century, Leiden University again became one of Europe's leading universities. At the world’s first university low-temperature laboratory, professor Heike Kamerlingh Onnes achieved temperatures of only one degree above absolute zero of −273 degrees Celsius. In 1908 he was also the first to succeed in liquifying helium and can be credited with the discovery of the superconductivity in metals. The
Frans Michel Penning of Gorinchem on 12 September 1894. Penning attended the University of Leiden. He studied mathematics and physics as a graduate student under Heike Kamerlingh Onnes. Penning's doctoral work involved measuring thermodynamic properties of various gases at extremely low temperatures. Penning received his PhD on June 25, 1923 with a dissertation entitled 'Metingen over isopyknen van gassen bij lage temperaturen' (Measurements on Isometric Density Lines of Gases at Low Temperatures). His father Louwrens Penning, was a popular novelist in the Dutch literary community; most known for romanticizing the Anglo-Boer War. His mother was Adriana Jenneke Machelina Heijmans. Penning married to Margje