Johannes Van Der Waals Essay Research Paper

Johannes Van Der Waals Essay, Research Paper

Biography

Johannes Diderik van der Waals was born on November 23, 1837 in Leyden, located in The Netherlands.His parents were Jacobus van der Waals, a carpenter and Elisabeth van den Burg. Without having much money to start with, van der Waals had to work his way up the latter. After completing his elementary education in Leyden, he became a schoolteacher. Having no prior knowledge of classical languages, and being exempt from taking academic examinations, he continued studying at Leyden University in his spare time during 1862 through 1865. By doing this he was later able to obtain teaching certificates in mathematics and physics.

Other successful people that attended the university were the Nobel Prize winners, and great physicists, Albert Einstein and Paul Ehrenfest. .The Arabist and Islam expert Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje and the law expert Cornelis van Vollenhoven, were among those who pushed the university into a place of international prominence during the twenties of the twentiest century..

In 1864 Johannes was given a job as a teacher at a middle school in Deventer, The Netherlands. He also married Anna Magdalena Smit, who died early. After that he never married again. They had three daughters and one son. Shortly after their mothers. death, their first daughter, Anne Madeleine, ran the house and looked after her father. His other daughter Jacqueline Elisabeth was a teacher of history and a well-known poetess, (form the research I.ve done, I.ve noticed a lot of information came up regarding her name). His son Johannes Diderik Jr., was a Professor of Physics at Groningen University, from 1903 to 1908. Activities JohannesVan der Waal.s enjoyed on his free time were, walking in the country, and reading.

In 1866, he moved to The Hague (the capital of Southern Holland), first as a schoolteacher and later as Director of one of the middle schools in the town. Then later after laws changed, pertaining towards the law, of were university students weren.t allowed to take examinations because of not completion of taking classical education such as Latin and Greek, van der Waals was able to take them. In 1873 he obtained his doctor’s degree for a thesis certified as .Over de Continu.teit van den Gas- en Vloeistoftoestand. In other words, for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids. Which is now known as Van der Waals equation of state. His resulting equation is:

In this thesis he composed a proposal stating: that he made an empirical correction to the Equation of State for Ideal Gases (PV = nRT), to make it work for real gases at elevated pressure and flat temperature, where attraction between molecules and their calculable sizes come into play. He could also demonstrate that these two states of matter not only merge into each other in an ongoing process, but that they are in fact of

the same nature.

The momentousness of this conclusion from Van der Waals’ first thesis can be judged from the comments made by Clerk Maxwell. He said, “that there can be no doubt

that the name of Van der Waals will soon be among the foremost in molecular science” and “It has certainly directed the attention of more than one inquirer to the study of the Low-Dutch language in which it is written.”

After being appointed as the very first professor of Physics at the University of Amsterdam he accomplished many great tasks. Along with him accompanied, Van.t Hoff and Hugo de Vries, the geneticist, by staying faithful to the university and not leaving until retirement, he helped it become a very popular school.

His second great achievement was the Law of Corresponding States

It was this law which served as an instructional guide during experiments which ended up to the result of liquefaction of hydrogen by J. Dewar in 1898 and of helium by H. Kamerlingh onnes in 1908. He also was given many awards: .Van der Waals was the recipient of numerous honors and distinctions, of which the following should be particularly mentioned. He received an honorary doctorate of the University of Cambridge; was made honorary member of the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow, the Royal Irish Academy and the American Philosophical Society; corresponding member of the Institut de France and the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin; associate member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Belgium; and foreign member of the Chemical Society of London, the National Academy of Sciences of the

U.S.A., and of the Accademia dei Lincei of Rome..

Johannes Diderik van der Waals died in Amsterdam on March 8, 1923. He was 86 years old, when he departed from the world. He was a man that came from nothing and amounted to a lot because of his ambition and thirst for life. Johannes was a wise man who opened the doors for other scientist, of other racists, genders and of people of different ages. If it wasn.t for him or other gifted scientists then we may not have the knowledge or understanding of the world and things around us, that we do today.

Johannes Diderik van der Walls

Johannes Diderik van der waals attained many goals in his life. From starting out with a roof over his head and a carpenter as a father, he was able to achieve a great deal and make history come to life. After a long struggle to succeed he was able to accomplish many achie