Waals, Johannes Diderik van der 1837-1923
Dutch physicist and Nobel Prize winner

Born in Leyden, he went to the university there, graduating in 1865. After teaching physics at Deventer and The Hague, he studied again at Leyden. He convincingly accounted for many phenomena concerning vapours and liquids by postulating the existence of intermolecular forces and a finite molecular volume. He derived a new equation of state (the van der Waals equation) which agreed much more closely with experimental data and led to a Nobel Prize for physics (1910). The weak attractions between molecules (van der Waals forces) were named in his honour. As Professor of Physics at Amsterdam University (1877-1907) he gained distinction as a teacher and as an advocate of the chemical thermodynamics of Josiah Gibbs.

Bibliography: A Y Kipnis, Van der Waals and Molecular Science (1996)