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Jacobus Henricus Van't Hoff
(30 Aug 1852 - 1 Mar 1911)
Dutch physical chemist who was the first winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1901). He worked on reaction rates, the theory of equilibrium, the theory of affinity based on free energy and osmotic pressure.
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Science Quotes by Jacobus Henricus Van't Hoff (3 quotes)
A famous name has this peculiarity that it becomes gradually smaller especially in natural sciences where each succeeding discovery invariably overshadows what precedes.
— Jacobus Henricus Van't Hoff
H. S. Van Klooster, 'Van't Hoff (1852-1911) in Retrospect', Journal of Chemical Education (1952), 29, 376.
It is sometimes easier to circumvent prevailing difficulties [in science] rather than to attack them.
— Jacobus Henricus Van't Hoff
Imagination in Science, inaugural lecture (1878), trans. G. F. Springer (1967), 8.
Whereas the chemico-chemists always find in industry a beautiful field of gold-laden soil, the physico-chemists stand somewhat farther off, especially those who seek only the greatest dilution, for in general there is little to make with watery solutions.
— Jacobus Henricus Van't Hoff
Attributed.
Quotes by others about Jacobus Henricus Van't Hoff (1)
We can distinguish three groups of scientific men. In the first and very small group we have the men who discover fundamental relations. Among these are van’t Hoff, Arrhenius and Nernst. In the second group we have the men who do not make the great discovery but who see the importance and bearing of it, and who preach the gospel to the heathen. Ostwald stands absolutely at the head of this group. The last group contains the rest of us, the men who have to have things explained to us.
'Ostwald', Journal of Chemical Education, 1933, 10, 612, as cited by Erwin N. Hiebert and Hans-Gunther Korber in article on Ostwald in Charles Coulston Gillespie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography Supplement 1, Vol 15-16, 466, which also says Wilder Bancroft "received his doctorate under Ostwald in 1892."
See also:
- 30 Aug - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Van't Hoff's birth.
- Imagination in Science, by J. H. van't Hoff. - book suggestion.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
