Dirk Coster

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Dirk Coster

Dirk Coster (born in Amsterdam, October 5, 1889– died in Groningen, February 12, 1950) was a Dutch physicist. He was a Professor of Physics and Meteorology at the University of Groningen. On February 26, 1919 he was married to Lina Maria Wijsman, who held a degree in Oriental languages. Eventually, she was one of the first women to obtain a doctorate degree in this field from the University of Leiden. Dirk and Miep had two sons and two daughters (Hendrik, Ada, Els, and Herman). Coster is known as the co-discoverer of Hafnium (Hf) (element 72) in 1923, along with George Charles von Hevesy, by means of X-ray spectroscopic analysis of zirconium ore. The discovery took place in Copenhagen, Denmark. Hafnia is the Latin name for Copenhagen.

1 Childhood and Education
2 Academic Career
3 Later years
4 Publications
5 See also
6 References and further reading
7 External links

[edit] Childhood and Education

Coster grew up in Amsterdam in a large working-class family; he was the third child of Barend Coster, a blacksmith, and Aafje van der Mik. The Coster family valued education. Ten of their children survived to adulthood and all received enough education to go onto middle-class professions. From 1904 to 1908 Dirk went to the Teacher's College in Haarlem, then was a teacher until 1913. With the aid of private support he was able to study mathematics and physics at the University of Leiden, first having passed the exams required for students who had no gymnasium education. In Leiden he was influenced by the inspiring lectures of Paul Ehrenfest, and in 1916 he obtained his master's degree. From 1916 to 1920 Coster was assistant of Lodewijk Siertsema and Wander de Haas at the Delft University of Technology, where in 1919 he obtained a degree in electrical engineering. In 1920 and 1921 he did research at Lund University under Manne Siegbahn, on X-ray spectroscopy of different elements. Coster's thesis was on this subject, and he obtained his Ph.D. in 1922 in Leiden under Paul Ehrenfest; his thesis was entitled "Röntgenspectra en de atoomtheorie van Bohr" (X-ray spectra and Bohr's atomtheory).

[edit] Academic Career

From August 1922 until the summer of 1923, Coster worked in Niels Bohr's Institute in Copenhagen. Within a few months he co-authored a landmark publication with Bohr, on X-ray spectroscopy and the periodic system of the elements. In addition he worked with chemist Georg von Hevesy on the identification of element No. 72. Element 72 had been known to be a gap in the sequence of elements since 1914, when Henry Moseley created an experimental technique for placing the elements in a definite sequence. Radiochemist Fritz Paneth suggested that element 72 might be found in ores of zirconium. (Some histories incorrectly attribute this suggestion to physicist Niels Bohr.) Bohr published a prediction of the electronic configuration of element 72 in 1923. von Hevesy had been working with Bohr at the time.

After Coster returned from Copenhagen he became Hendrik Lorentz' assistant at the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, where he developed a X-ray spectrometer. In 1924 he was appointed at the University of Groningen, where he was the successor of Wander de Haas. At Groningen he started an active research program in X-ray spectroscopy.

[edit] Later years

Coster was politically involved. In 1938 he traveled to Berlin to convince Lise Meitner that she had to leave Germany to escape the persecution of the Jews. Together they went by train to Groningen; from there she went on to Sweden by way of Copenhagen. During the German occupation of Holland, he also helped Jews hide from the Nazis and listened to the BBC on a daily basis using a bicycle-powered radio.

The asteroid 10445 Coster is named after Dirk Coster.

[edit] Publications

Coster, D (July 1923). "Röntgenspektren und Bohrsche Atomtheorie". Naturwissenschaften 11 (27): 567-577. DOI:10.1007/BF01554353. ISSN 0028-1042.
Bohr, N, Coster, D (December 1923). "Röntgenspektren und periodisches System der Elemente". Zeitschrift für Physik A Hadrons and Nuclei 12 (1): 342-374. DOI:10.1007/BF01328104. ISSN 0939-7922.
Coster, D, von Hevesey, G (January 20, 1923). "On the missing element of atomic number 72". Nature 111: 79.
Coster, D, de Laer Kronig, R (1935). "A new type of Auger effect and its influence on the x-ray spectrum". Physica 2: 13.

[edit] See also

[edit] References and further reading

Scerri, Eric R. (March 1994). "Prediction of the nature of hafnium from chemistry, Bohr's theory and quantum theory". Annals of Science 51 (2): 137 - 150. DOI:10.1080/00033799400200161.
Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics by Ruth Lewin Sime (University of California Press 1977) ISBN 0-520-20860-9.
Heisenberg's War: The Secret History of the German Bomb by Thomas Powers (Da Capo Press, 2000 ) ISBN 0-306-81011-5.
No Time to Be Brief: A Scientific Biography of Wolfgang Pauli by Charles P. Enz (Oxford University Press, 2002) ISBN 0-19-856479-1.