Physicist — Johannes Diderik van der Waals (Leiden, 1837 – Amsterdam, 1923) was a Dutch physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1910. Of modest origins and largely self-taught in his early years, he became a professor at the University of Amsterdam. In his 1873 doctoral thesis he devised an equation of state describing the behaviour of real gases, correcting the ideal gas law by accounting for the finite volume of molecules and the attractive forces between them. This work provided a theoretical basis for understanding the transition between the gaseous and liquid states and the critical temperature, with important consequences for gas liquefaction. The weak intermolecular forces he introduced still bear his name today (van der Waals forces) and are fundamental in physics and chemistry.
Trivia
His work on the equation of state guided research into gas liquefaction: it was thanks to these theoretical foundations that hydrogen and helium were liquefied only a few years later.
Theories and contributions
- Van der Waals equation — Equation of state for real gases: , with accounting for attractions and for molecular volume.
- Van der Waals forces — Weak attractive forces between neutral molecules due to permanent or induced dipoles, explaining cohesion and condensation.
Featured in chapters
Linked atoms
2 linked atoms.