Heike Kamerlingh Onnes was a Dutch experimental physicist who became the first to liquefy helium, cooling it to near 1.5 kelvin (K). For this work, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1913. The Nobel Prize in Physics 1913, announced November 11, 1913. Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, “for his investigations on the properties of matter at low temperatures which led, inter alia, to the production of liquid helium”. Heike Kamerlingh Onnes: born 1853, Groningen, the Netherlands. Wiki link Data: the Nobel Foundation (CC0).