In this article, Dutch capitalization is used fortussenvoegsels inDutch family names. The first letter in Van der Waals is capitalized unless it is preceded by a name, initial or title of nobility.
In his 1873 thesis, Van der Waals noted thenon-ideality ofreal gases and attributed it to the existence ofintermolecular interactions. He introduced the firstequation of state derived by the assumption of a finite volume occupied by the constituent molecules.[6] Spearheaded byErnst Mach andWilhelm Ostwald, a strong philosophical current that denied the existence ofmolecules arose towards the end of the 19th century. The molecular existence was considered unproven and the molecular hypothesis unnecessary. At the time Van der Waals's thesis was written (1873), themolecular structure offluids had not been accepted by most physicists, andliquid andvapor were often considered as chemically distinct. But Van der Waals's work affirmed the reality of molecules and allowed an assessment of their size andattractive strength. His new formula revolutionized the study of equations of state. By comparinghis equation of state with experimental data, Van der Waals was able to obtain estimates for the actual size of molecules and the strength oftheir mutual attraction.[7]
The effect of Van der Waals's work onmolecular physics in the 20th century was direct and fundamental.[8] Byintroducing parameters characterizing molecular size and attraction in constructing hisequation of state, Van der Waals set the tone for modernmolecular science. That molecular aspects such as size, shape, attraction, andmultipolar interactions should form the basis for mathematical formulations of the thermodynamic and transport properties offluids is presently considered an axiom.[9] With the help of the Van der Waals's equation of state, the critical-point parameters of gases could be accurately predicted from thermodynamic measurements made at much higher temperatures.Nitrogen,oxygen,hydrogen, andhelium subsequently succumbed toliquefaction.Heike Kamerlingh Onnes was significantly influenced by the pioneering work of Van der Waals. In 1908, Onnes became the first to makeliquid helium; this led directly to his 1911 discovery ofsuperconductivity.[10]
Johannes Diderik van der Waals was born on 23 November 1837 inLeiden in the Netherlands. He was the eldest of ten children born to Jacobus van der Waals and Elisabeth van den Berg. His father was acarpenter in Leiden. As was usual for all girls and working-class boys in the 19th century, he did not go to the kind of secondary school that would have given him the right to enter university. Instead he went to a school of “advanced primary education”, which he finished at the age of fifteen. He then became a teacher's apprentice in an elementary school. Between 1856 and 1861 he followed courses and gained the necessary qualifications to become a primary school teacher and head teacher.
In 1862, he began to attend lectures in mathematics, physics and astronomy at the university in his city of birth, although he was not qualified to be enrolled as a regular student in part because of his lack of education inclassical languages.[11] However,Leiden University had a provision that enabled outside students to take up to four courses a year. In 1863 the Dutch government started a new kind of secondary school (HBS, a school aiming at the children of the higher middle classes). Van der Waals—at that time head of an elementary school—wanted to become a HBS teacher in mathematics and physics and spent two years studying in his spare time for the required examinations.
In 1865, he was appointed as a physics teacher at the HBS inDeventer and in 1866, he received such a position inThe Hague, which was close enough to Leiden to allow Van der Waals to resume his courses at the university there. In September 1865, just before moving to Deventer, Van der Waals married the eighteen-year-old Anna Magdalena Smit.
Van der Waals still lacked the knowledge of theclassical languages that would have given him the right to enter university as a regular student and to take examinations. However, it so happened that the law regulating the university entrance was changed and dispensation from the study of classical languages could be given by the minister of education. Van der Waals was given this dispensation and passed the qualification exams in physics and mathematics fordoctoral studies.
At Leiden University, on June 14, 1873, he defended his doctoral thesisOver de Continuïteit van den Gas- en Vloeistoftoestand (on the continuity of the gaseous and liquid state) underPieter Rijke. In the thesis, he introduced the concepts of molecular volume and molecular attraction.[12]
In September 1877, Van der Waals was appointed the first professor of physics at the newly foundedMunicipal University of Amsterdam. Two of his notable colleagues were the physical chemistJacobus Henricus van 't Hoff and the biologistHugo de Vries. Until his retirement at the age of 70, Van der Waals remained at the Amsterdam University. He was succeeded by his son Johannes Diderik van der Waals, Jr., who also was a theoretical physicist. In 1910, at the age of 72, Van der Waals was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. He died at the age of 85 on March 8, 1923.
The main interest of Van der Waals was in the field ofthermodynamics. He was influenced byRudolf Clausius's 1857 treatise entitledÜber die Art der Bewegung, welche wir Wärme nennen (On the Kind of Motion which we Call Heat).[13][14] Van der Waals was later greatly influenced by the writings ofJames Clerk Maxwell,Ludwig Boltzmann, andWillard Gibbs. Clausius's work led him to look for an explanation ofThomas Andrews's experiments that had revealed, in 1869, the existence of critical temperatures in fluids.[15] He managed to give a semi-quantitative description of the phenomena ofcondensation and critical temperatures in his 1873 thesis, entitledOver de Continuïteit van den Gas- en Vloeistoftoestand (On the continuity of the gas and liquid state).[16] This dissertation represented a hallmark in physics and was immediately recognized as such, e.g. byJames Clerk Maxwell who reviewed it inNature[17] in a laudatory manner.
In this thesis he derived the equation of state bearing his name. This work gave a model in which the liquid and the gas phase of a substance merge into each other in a continuous manner. It shows that the two phases are of the same nature. In deriving his equation of state Van der Waals assumed not only the existence of molecules (the existence of atoms was disputed at the time[18]), but also that they are of finite size and attract each other. Since he was one of the first to postulate an intermolecular force, however rudimentary, such a force is now sometimes called aVan der Waals force.
A second major discovery was the 1880 the law of corresponding states, which showed that the Van der Waals equation of state can be expressed as a simple function of the critical pressure, critical volume, and critical temperature. This general form is applicable to all substances (seeVan der Waals equation.) Thecompound-specific constantsa andb in the original equation are replaced by universal (compound-independent) quantities. It was this law which served as a guide during experiments which ultimately led to theliquefaction ofhydrogen byJames Dewar in 1898 and ofhelium byHeike Kamerlingh Onnes in 1908.
In 1890, Van der Waals published a treatise on theTheory of Binary Solutions in the Archives Néerlandaises. By relating his equation of state with thesecond law of thermodynamics, in the form first proposed by Willard Gibbs, he was able to arrive at a graphical representation of his mathematical formulations in the form of a surface which he called Ψ (Psi) surface following Gibbs, who used the Greek letter Ψ for thefree energy of a system with different phases in equilibrium.
Mention should also be made of Van der Waals's theory ofcapillarity, which in its basic form first appeared in 1893.[19] In contrast to themechanical perspective on the subject provided earlier byPierre-Simon Laplace,[20] Van der Waals took a thermodynamic approach. This was controversial at the time, since the existence of molecules and their permanent, rapid motion were not universally accepted beforeJean Baptiste Perrin's experimental verification ofAlbert Einstein's theoretical explanation ofBrownian motion.
He married his wife Anna Magdalena Smit in 1865, and the couple had three daughters (Anne Madeleine,Jacqueline E. van der Waals [nl], Johanna Diderica) and one son, the physicistJohannes Diderik van der Waals, Jr. [nl], who also worked at the University of Amsterdam. Jacqueline was a poet of some note. Van der Waals's nephewPeter van der Waals was a cabinet maker and a leading figure in theSapperton, Gloucestershire school of theArts and Crafts movement. His wife died oftuberculosis at 34 years old in 1881. After becoming a widower Van der Waals never remarried and was so shaken by the death of his wife that he did not publish anything for about a decade. He died inAmsterdam on March 8, 1923, one year after his daughter Jacqueline had died.
It will be perfectly clear that in all my studies I was quite convinced of the real existence of molecules, that I never regarded them as a figment of my imagination, nor even as mere centres of force effects. I considered them to be the actual bodies, thus what we term "body" in daily speech ought better to be called "pseudo body". It is an aggregate of bodies and empty space. We do not know the nature of a molecule consisting of a single chemical atom. It would be premature to seek to answer this question but to admit this ignorance in no way impairs the belief in its real existence. When I began my studies I had the feeling that I was almost alone in holding that view. And when, as occurred already in my 1873 treatise, I determined their number in one gram-mol, their size and the nature of their action, I was strengthened in my opinion, yet still there often arose within me the question whether in the final analysis a molecule is a figment of the imagination and the entire molecular theory too. And now I do not think it any exaggeration to state that the real existence of molecules is universally assumed by physicists. Many of those who opposed it most have ultimately been won over, and my theory may have been a contributory factor. And precisely this, I feel, is a step forward. Anyone acquainted with the writings ofBoltzmann andWillard Gibbs will admit that physicists carrying great authority believe that the complex phenomena of the heat theory can only be interpreted in this way. It is a great pleasure for me that an increasing number of younger physicists find the inspiration for their work in studies and contemplations of the molecular theory ...
— Johannes D. van der Waals's notes inNobel Lecture,The equation of state for gases and liquids (12 December 1910).
^Parsegian, V. Adrian (2005).Van der Waals Forces: A Handbook for Biologists, Chemists, Engineers, and Physicists. (Cambridge University Press), p. 2. “The first clear evidence of forces between what were soon to be called molecules came from Johannes Diderik van der Waals's 1873 Ph.D. thesis formulation of the pressure p, volume V, and temperature T of dense gases.”
^van der Waals; J. D. (1873).Over de continuiteit van den gas- en vloeistoftoestand (On the Continuity of the Gaseous and Liquid States) (doctoral dissertation). Universiteit Leiden.
^J.D. van der Waals, 1910, "The equation of state for gases and liquids,"Nobel Lectures in Physics, pp. 254–265 (December 12, 1910), see[1], accessed 25 June 2015.
^Andrews, T. (1869). "The Bakerian Lecture: On the Gaseous State of Matter".Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.159:575–590.doi:10.1098/rstl.1869.0021.
^Tang, K.-T.; Toennies, J. P. (2010). "Johannes Diderik van der Waals: A Pioneer in the Molecular Sciences and Nobel Prize Winner in 1910".Angewandte Chemie International Edition.49 (50):9574–9579.Bibcode:2010ACIE...49.9574T.doi:10.1002/anie.201002332.PMID21077069.
^Van der Waals, J.D. (1893). "Thermodynamische theorie der capillariteit in de onderstelling van continue dichtheidsverandering".Verhand. Kon. Akad. V Wetensch. Amst. Sect. 1 (Dutch; English Translation in J. Stat. Phys., 1979, 20:197).
Kipnis, A. Ya.; Yavelov, B. E.; Rowlinson, J. S. (trans.):Van der Waals and Molecular Science. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)ISBN0-19-855210-6
Sengers, Johanna Levelt:How Fluids Unmix: Discoveries by the School of Van der Waals and Kamerlingh Onnes. (Amsterdam : Koninklijke Nerlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 2002)
Shachtman, Tom:Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999)
Van Delft, Dirk:Freezing Physics: Heike Kamerlingh Onnes and the Quest for Cold. (Amsterdam: Koninklijke Nerlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 2008)
Van der Waals, J. D.: Edited and Intro. J. S. Rowlinson:On the Continuity of the Liquid and Gaseous States. (New York: Dover Publications, 2004, 320pp)
Scientists of the Dutch SchoolVan der Waals, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Albert van HeldenJohannes Diderik van der Waals 1837 – 1923 In: K. van Berkel, A. van Helden and L. Palm ed., A History of Science in the Netherlands. Survey, Themes and Reference (Leiden: Brill, 1999) 596 – 598.
Johannes Diderik van der Waals on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1910The Equation of State for Gases and Liquids
