Waals
Waals, Johannes Diderik van der (1837-1923), a Dutch physicist. He was awarded the 1910 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the behavior of gases and liquids. He developed an equation explaining the relationship between the pressure, volume, and temperature of gases; unlike earlier workers in the field, he took into account the size of the molecules making up the gas and the force of their attraction. Van der Waals was born in Leiden, Netherlands, and studied at the university there.