Frits Zernike

Frits Zernike (/ˈzɜːrn.ᵻ.ki/; 16 July 1888 – 10 March 1966) was a Dutch physicist and winner of the Nobel prize for physics in 1953 for his invention of the phase contrast microscope, an instrument that permits the study of internal cell structure without the need to stain and thus kill the cells.

Biography

Zernike was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands to Carl Frederick August Zernike and Antje Dieperink. Both parents were teachers of mathematics, and he especially shared his father's passion for physics. He studied chemistry (his major), mathematics and physics at the University of Amsterdam. In 1912 he was awarded a prize for his work on opalescence in gases. In 1913 he became assistant to Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn at the astronomical laboratory of Groningen University. In 1914, he was responsible jointly with Leonard Salomon Ornstein for the derivation of the Ornstein-Zernike equation in critical-point theory. In 1915, he obtained a position in theoretical physics at the same university and in 1920 he was promoted to full professor of theoretical physics.