Johannes Diderik van der Waals

Johannes Diderik van der Waals (Dutch: [joːˈɦɑnəz ˈdidərɪk fɑn dər ˈʋaːls] ; 23 November 1837 – 8 March 1923) was a Dutch theoretical physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1910 "for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids." Van der Waals started his career as a schoolteacher, before becoming the first physics professor of the University of Amsterdam when its status was upgraded to Municipal University in 1877. His name is primarily associated with the van der Waals equation, an equation of state that describes the behavior of gases and their condensation to the liquid phase.

Source: Wikipedia — Johannes Diderik van der Waals (CC BY-SA 4.0)