The history of modern physics largely unfolded in the J/K Building
The Roeterseiland Campus, now home to the social sciences, was once the birthplace of modern physics at the UvA. With the installation of two wall hangings in the J/K Building, UvA physicists are bringing that history back into view.
The building’s two tall chimneys and its layout, with laboratory spaces measuring 3 by 6 metres, are reminders of its past: the J/K Building was once a physics laboratory. Physicists at the UvA conducted research into magnetic materials, amongst other things. Twenty-five years later, this led to the development of tiny electric motors that convert electricity into motion; these can now be found everywhere: in your electric toothbrush, in cars, in sensors and in medical equipment.
A chronicle
Yet little of this history can be found at the UvA, much to the dismay of UvA physicist Willem Mattens. Together with emeritus professor of applied physics Frank de Boer, he wrote a chronicle of this history of physics at the UvA and arranged for two wall hangings to be installed in the corridor of the J/K Building on the morning of Wednesday 30 September.
The first wall hanging features a timeline beginning in 1877, when the Atheneum Illustre became Amsterdam’s municipal university and large-scale physics research really began to take off. Mattens explains: “Before that, physics, like mathematics, was much more in the service of medicine, the oldest discipline of them all.”In the years that followed, several physics institutes were established on the Roeterseiland Campus. In 1963, they all moved to a brand-new building at Valckenierstraat 65–57, now known as the J/K Building.
Glassblowers
“It was a fantastic laboratory building,” remembers Mattens, who was responsible for the building’s management in the 1980s and 1990s. “It was specially designed by the physicist Rathenau and Veringa and was thoroughly up to date. All kinds of facilities, such as high-pressure cooling water, nitrogen and argon gas, came straight out of the walls.” The large power supplies for electromagnets were housed in the lowest basement, while the experiments themselves were carried out in the experimental rooms above.
The second wall hanging features photographs and other images of this history. The area where the reception hall, Coffee Star and the main lecture theatre are now located was once home to the precision engineering workshops. Mattens: “There were lathes and milling machines there, and around thirty or forty people worked on all kinds of equipment.” The floor above was occupied by the electronics technicians and glassblowers.
Two thousand dissertations
With these wall hangings, Mattens aims to bring the history of physics at the Roeterseiland Campus to life. “Since 2010, all physics research has been carried out at the Science Park in Watergraafsmeer. Nevertheless, one of the key centres of the history of physics at the UvA still lies in the J/K building. Of the roughly two thousand physics theses published at the UvA, more than half are based on research that took place in that building.”
The wall hangings will be officially unveiled on Friday afternoon, 9 October, by former members of the Executive Board and the dean of the Faculty of Science. This will be followed by a reunion for former and current students and staff of the Institute of Physics at Crea.
