Talk:Johannes Diderik van der Waals

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Moved from main page: ''Edit by Melanie Van der Waals - Great, great, great granddaughter. It is a common misconception to spell the surname with a small v. The surname means Family by the river Waals.''

Actually according to dutch convention (and he was a dutch man) the V is capitalized only when it is the first letter. I.e. you'd say "Van de Waals said ..." but also "Johannes van der Waals said ..." (cf. the Nobel biography). Very cool that someone who traces heritage to the man helps build the article though, all input is very much appreciated :) Beck 15:42, 10 December 2005 (UTC)


 * My understanding is that the two forms are variously adopted by different families. When van is all lowercase I understand it is kind of particle, and not stricly part of the surname.  When Van is capitalised, I understand it is considered integral to the surname.  In some cases this goes an extra step and the words are contracted to a single surname (like 'Vanderwaals').  The Dutch page has 'van', and I'd hope they got it right!
 * 128.250.204.118 04:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC)


 * As a native Dutch speaker from The Netherlands, I can confirm that the "V" is only capitalised if it is the first letter. While "van" is definitely part of the surname, the name "van der Waals" would be listed under "W" in the telephone directory. Note that the convention is different in Belgian Dutch (Flemish). Contraction to a single word is American (similar to "Vanderbilt" etc.) Rbakels (talk) 06:25, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Amsterdam University
Amsterdam University was not founded in 1877, but in 1632. In 1877 the former "athenaeum illustre" was upgraded to a university (which means someting else in English (*)). It is more appropriate to say that Van der Waals became the first professor of physics at this university. Rbakels (talk) 06:30, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

(*) In English, a university basically is any institution for tertiary education. In continental Europe, a university is the highest level of tertiary education (at least it was until very recently). Rbakels (talk) 06:30, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Personal life -> grandson
It seems very unlikely that that professor Christopher Vanderwal is his grandson. According to the page of the Vanderwal, his parents were Canadian, when he was born in Germany. On the other hand, Johannes Diderik van der Waals did have one son, Johannes Diderik van der Waals jr., who was a professor at university of Groningen where he was a theoretical physicist. So it is very unlikly that Junior would have become Canadian citizen and moved to Canada before 1971, the year this 98-old died (according to the dutch page) and raised a son. (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Diderik_van_der_Waals_jr.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A03F:264C:C800:5495:31F4:46AA:D185 (talk) 20:24, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

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External links modified
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Van der Waals self-taught?
Somebody added towards the end of the intro: "A largely self-taught man in mathematics and physics, van der Waals [...]". When you read the section on early years and education you'll find that Van der Waals followed lectures at the university of Leiden and took courses that qualified him to teach physics at high school level. P.wormer (talk) 17:19, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Van der Waals entered the University in 1865 without the officially required high school diploma's, so at that point "self-taught" is appropriate. However, he then followed the usual 5 year physics study in Leiden, so "self-taught" does not apply. Brienanni (talk) 18:57, 4 January 2018 (UTC)