Adriaan Fokker

Physicist, Academic

1887 – 1972

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Who was Adriaan Fokker?

Adriaan Daniël Fokker, was a Dutch physicist and musician.

Fokker was born in Buitenzorg, Dutch East Indies; he was a cousin of the aeronautical engineer Anthony Fokker. He studied mining engineering at the Delft University of Technology and physics at the University of Leiden with Hendrik Lorentz, where he earned his doctorate in 1913. He continued his studies with Albert Einstein, Ernest Rutherford and William Bragg. In his 1913 thesis, he derived the Fokker–Planck equation along with Max Planck. After his military service during World War I he returned to Leiden as Lorentz' and Ehrenfest's assistant. In 1928 Fokker succeeded Hendrik Lorentz as director of research at Teylers Museum in Haarlem.

Fokker made several contributions to special relativity, and some less well-known contributions to general relativity, particularly in the area of geodetic precession, the phenomena of precession of a freely falling gyroscope in a gravitational field.

Fokker began to study music theory during the Second World War, when the University of Leiden was closed; partly this was due to a desire to convince the Nazis he would be of no use to the war effort, and partly it was a response to reading the work of Christiaan Huygens on the 31 equal temperament.

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Born
Aug 17, 1887
Dutch East Indies
Also known as
  • A. D. Fokker
Nationality
  • Netherlands
Profession
Education
  • Leiden University
  • Delft University of Technology
Employment
  • Leiden University
Lived in
  • Netherlands
Died
Sep 24, 1972
Beekbergen

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

Citation

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