Johannes Diderik van der Waals

Common card · No. 318254

Johannes Diderik van der Waals (Dutch: [joːˈɦɑnəz ˈdidərɪk fɑn dər ˈʋaːls] ; 23 November 1837 – 8 March 1923) was a Dutch theoretical physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1910 "for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids." Van der Waals started his career as a schoolteacher, before becoming the first physics professor of the University of Amsterdam when its status was upgraded to Municipal University in 1877. His name is primarily associated with the van der Waals equation, an equation of state that describes the behavior of gases and their condensation to the liquid phase. His name is also associated with van der Waals forces (forces between stable molecules), with van der Waals molecules (small molecular clusters bound by van der Waals forces), and with the van der Waals radius (size of molecules). James Clerk Maxwell once said that, "there can be no doubt that the name of Van der Waals will soon be among the foremost in molecular science." In his 1873...

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