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
Leiden scale Leiden scale The Leiden scale (°L) was used to calibrate low-temperature indirect measurements in the early twentieth century, by providing conventional values (in kelvins, then termed "degrees Kelvin") of helium vapour pressure. It was used below -183°C, the starting point of the International Temperature scale in the 1930s (Awbery 1934). The Leiden scale probably goes back to around 1894, when Heike Kamerlingh Onnes' cryogenic laboratory was established in Leiden, Netherlands. It has been reported that the scale is the kelvin scale shifted so that the boiling points of hydrogen and oxygen become zero and 70 respectively, but this is unlikely