Something about the Mechanism of Induction Phenomena: The forgotten work of Berta de Haas-Lorentz on diamagnetism in superconductors

TL;DR

This paper highlights the pioneering yet overlooked work of Berta de Haas-Lorentz on diamagnetism in superconductors, predating the Meissner effect, and emphasizes her contributions to the early understanding of superconductivity.

Contribution

It brings attention to Berta de Haas-Lorentz's 1925 work on perfect diamagnetism in superconductors, which predates and anticipates key concepts in superconductivity theory.

Findings

De Haas-Lorentz's 1925 paper discusses perfect diamagnetism in superconductors.

Her work predates the discovery of the Meissner effect by eight years.

The paper restores her contributions to the history of superconductivity.

Abstract

In 1925, Dr. Geertruida Luberta "Berta" de Haas-Lorentz published the paper "Iets over het mechanisme van inductieverschijnselen" in the journal Physica. Her paper was the first to discuss perfect diamagnetism of superconductors, eight years before the discovery of the Meissner effect, when the essential difference between the two phenomena was not understood. Unfortunately, her work was almost forgotten by the scientific community. To counter this, we translate her seminal 1925 paper from Dutch into English. We provide an overview of the life of Dr. De Haas-Lorentz, and comment on her pioneering contribution to the theory of superconductivity.