Scientists

Scientists are people who seek to understand the natural world in a systematic way by observation, experimentation and theory. They span multiple fields — physics, chemistry, biology and earth sciences — to discover the laws of nature and then use them to address fundamental human challenges. In this article, we will take a look at the contributions of three major scientists — Johannes Diderik van der Waals, Vincent Joseph Schaefer, and Julius Lothar Meyer along with some other aims that feature names of similar achievements.

Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837–1923)

Johannes Diderik van der Waals (Best known for), a Dutch theoretical physicist, improved our knowledge of gases and liquids via his research on the equation of state. Van der Waals was born on November 23, 1837 in Leiden, Netherlands; as his family was poor and the university had restrictions at that time period regarding education level, he did not have access to formal higher studies. His grit and self-study, however, enabled him to attend the University of Leiden where he received his doctorate in 1873 with a dissertation called On the Continuity of the Gaseous and Liquid States.

In this thesis van der Waals presented the equation of state that now bears his name. This equation takes into account two important factors that the ideal gas law overlooks: the volume occupied by molecules and the interaction with other adjacent molecules. With that knowledge, we had more realistic descriptions of the behavior of real gases (note that ideal gas laws tend to break down as you approach the liquid state). Those ideas provided the foundation for what later became known as “van der Waals forces,” the weak attraction between neutral molecules. This idea of molecules interacting with each other then dominated the main substrates of physical chemistry, condensed matter physics and material science.

Van der Waals received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1910 for his contributions to the fields of thermodynamics and molecular theory. Others built on his work, such as Johannes Stark and Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, who examined atomic and molecular interactions in more detail. He died on March 8, 1923 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

In some ways, they are the James Clerk Maxwell, historic thermodynamicist who invented the kinetic theory of gases, and Ludwig Boltzmann, father of statistical thermodynamics conversion to modern-style molecular-driven kinetics. Finally, the work of Maxwell and Boltzmann on the behaviour of gases gave further insight into Avogadro’s findings, focusing on the movement and energy distributions of molecules [1].

Vincent Joseph Schaefer (1906–1993)

A American chemist and meteorologist whom research in cloud physics gave rise to cloud seeding—a for year of how to modify the weather. Schaefer was born on July 4, 1906 in Schenectady, New York and his early education was a path of its own; he dropped out of high school in 1922 to help support the family and eventually graduated from the Davey Institute of Tree Surgery in 1928. This was a pivotal point in his career, entering the General Electric Research Laboratory as an assistant to the famous Chemist Irving Langmuir.

This inquisitive habit drove Schaefer to investigate cloud building and rain, and how it forms. His first success came in the Berkshire Mountains, when cloud-seeding with dry ice induced precipitation on November 13, 1946. This was the first time that snowfall was generated in a controlled manner, thus laying down the principles of weather modification. This is where Schaefer made his groundbreaking discovery, it opened the door for projects such as Project Cirrus and Project Stormfury which aimed to reduce hurricane strength and improve the understanding of storm systems. During his career, Schaefer patented 14 different devices and published extensively on subjects pertaining to atmospheric science, creating a lasting impact in the field of meteorology. He died in July 25th, 1993.

Other atmospheric research and weather modification scientists include Bernard Vonnegut, who invented cloud seeding with silver iodide crystals, and Alfred Wegener, the meteorologist and geophysicist most associated with his theory of continental drift. Schaefer was not alone in his work on atmospheric patterns that var traded weather at a hemispheric scale, nor on approaches to polar meteorology: this had already experienced some of the expansive thinking as a component of Wegener.

Julius Lothar Meyer (1830 – 1895)

Julius Lothar Meyer (German: [ˈlʊtaːʁ ˈmaɪ̯ɐ]; 19 August 1830 – 11 April 1895) was a German chemist whose classification of the elements according to their atomic weights and physical/chemical properties assisted in the emergence of the periodic table. Meyer was born in Varel, Duchy of Oldenburg on 19 August 1830 and first studied medicine before turning to chemistry at the universities of Würzburg and Breslau. He earned his Ph. After earning his Ph. D. in 1858, he pursued a teaching and research career that eventually placed him in a position to make many chemical classification discoveries.

In 1864, Meyer published his book "Die modernen Theorien der Chemie,", which presented a variant of the periodic table concept that included only 28 elements divided by valence. His work with atomic structure found trends in chemical behavior, foreshadowing the contemporary periodic law. While the table that Meyer made is important, Dmitri Mendeleev published an even more famous periodic table a few years later; he accurately predicted properties of elements not yet discovered at that time and his table became the most widely used tool. However, Meyer was essential in the creation of atomic theory as well as classifying elements.

In 1882, Meyer was awarded the Davy Medal "for his contributions to chemistry." Until his passing on 11 April 1895 in Tübingen, Kingdom of Württemberg, he remained active in the fields of chemical education and research. Although his efforts on atomic weights and periodicity were pale in comparison to the thankless task of his successors, it paved the way for chemists like Henry Moseley to show a fundamental relationship between atomic number and elemental properties (and thus making refinement additions to the periodic table itself still closer).

Significant contributions to atomic theory were subsequently made by other scientists, including John Dalton, who proposed the modern definition of the atomic theory in the early 19th century, and Jöns Jakob Berzelius, who determined atomic weights and developed much of our chemical notation. Meyer, Mendeleev and Moseley were based and inspired by the theoretical basis provided by Dalton’s atomic theory. Berzelius′ activity in particular rendered many elements more precisely measurable, which was a prerequisite to develop the periodic system.

In Memoriam: Remembering the Contributions of Global Scientists

The work of Johannes Diderik van der Waals, Vincent Joseph Schaefer and Julius Lothar Meyer demonstrates the power of persistent scientific inquiry to develop a deeper understanding of our world. How Van der Waals bridged the boundary between ideal and real gases is still influential in science, with relevance to fields investigating matter behaviour at both microscopic as well as macroscopic scales. In this vein, Schaefer also pioneered cloud-seeding innovations that provided us with a real-world application of weather-modification techniques and increased our atmospheric science options. At the same time, Meyer had arranged some 28 elements according to their atomic weights and laid the groundwork for what would become an essential tool of chemistry: the periodic table.

The legacy created here with the work of these scientists inspired generations to come and impacted nearly every field of science. The interlocking squares of thermodynamics between figures like Maxwell and Boltzmann, meteorology between Vonnegut and Wegener, or atomic theory between Dalton and Berzelius in each offer a mosaic of knowledge that indicates the organic weave of scientific progress. With each discovery, these scientists contributed to a knowledge base that continues expanding today, one based on our exploration of the cosmos—with each orbital flyby or manned mission providing new details about the universe in which we reside. The relevance of their influence stands as a testament to the importance behind question asking and how science can bring an enormous impact on humankind.