| Leonard Ornstein | |
| Birth Date: | 15 November 1880 |
| Birth Place: | Nijmegen, Netherlands |
| Death Place: | Utrecht, Netherlands |
| Field: | Physicist |
| Work Institutions: | University of Utrecht |
| Alma Mater: | University of Leiden |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Hendrik Lorentz |
| Doctoral Students: | 95 PhD students, for instance Marcel Minnaert H. C. Hamaker Hendrik Dorgelo Arie Andries Kruithof[1] |
| Known For: | Discontinuous electrophoresis Ornstein-Zernike equation Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process |
Leonard Salomon Ornstein (12 November 1880 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands - 20 May 1941 in Utrecht, the Netherlands)[2] was a Dutch physicist.
Ornstein studied theoretical physics with Hendrik Antoon Lorentz at the University of Leiden. He subsequently carried out Ph.D. research under the supervision of Lorentz, concerning an application of the statistical mechanics of Gibbs to molecular problems.[3]
In 1914, Ornstein was appointed professor of physics, as successor of Peter Debye, at the University of Utrecht. Among his doctoral students was Jan Frederik Schouten. In 1922, Ornstein became director of the Physical Laboratory (Fysisch Laboratorium) and extended his research interests to experimental subjects. His precision measurements concerning intensities of spectral lines brought the Physical Laboratory in the international limelight.[4]
Ornstein is also remembered for the Ornstein-Zernike theory (named after himself and Frederik Zernike) concerning correlation functions,[5] and the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process (named after Ornstein and George Uhlenbeck), a stochastic process.
Together with Gilles Holst,[6] director of the Philips Physics Laboratory (Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium), Ornstein was the driving force behind establishing the Netherlands Physical Society (Nederlandse Natuurkundige Vereniging, NNV) in 1921. From 1939 until November 1940, he was chairman of this society. From 1918 until 1922, he was chairman of the Dutch Zionist Society (Nederlandse Zionistische Vereniging). In 1929, he became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[7]
Immediately after the May 1940 German conquest and occupation of the Netherlands in World War II (see Battle of the Netherlands), a friend from the United States of America, the astronomer Peter van de Kamp, offered to bring Ornstein and his family to America. However, Ornstein did not accept this offer, since, as he put it, he would not leave his laboratory in Utrecht. The Nazis targeted Ornstein for his Jewish heritage and the university dismissed him in September 1940, barring him from entering his laboratory. In November 1940, the university's dismissal became official. On 29 November 1940, Ornstein withdrew his membership of the Netherlands Physical Society. During this period he increasingly distanced himself from public life, to the degree that he no longer wished to receive guests at home. Ornstein died on 20 May 1941, a year after German occupation, and six months after being barred from University.
One of the five buildings of the Department of Physics at the University of Utrecht is named the Leonard S. Ornstein Laboratory[8] in his honor.