Chemistry: 1901

Van't Hoff, Jacobus Henricus, pronounced vahnt HOF, yah KOH buhs hehn REE kuhs (1852-1911), was a Dutch chemist who received the first Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1901. He discovered the laws of chemical dynamics and osmosis. He was the first to note that the properties of solutions depend upon the number, not the kind, of dissolved particles. He also showed that the simple gas laws apply to dilute solutions. Van't Hoff also did fundamental work in stereochemistry, which is concerned with the arrangement of atoms in the spaces of the molecules. Van't Hoff was born in Rotterdam. While teaching at the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, he did important research on the formation and decomposition of double salts.