Johannes Diderik Van der Waals

Van der Waals, Johannes Diderik (1837–1923), Dutch physicist who investigated the properties of real gases. Noting that the kinetic theory of gases assumed that the molecules had neither size nor interactive forces between them, in 1873 he proposed Van der Waals' equation, in which allowance is made for both these factors. The weak attractive forces between molecules are therefore named Van der Waals forces. He received the 1910 Nobel Prize for physics.

See also: Physics.