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Article: Ostwald, Friedrich Wilhelm
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- Chemistry: Foundations and Applications
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Ostwald, Friedrich Wilhelm
COFOUNDER OF MODERN PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY
1853
–
1932
Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald, born in Riga, Latvia, Russia, almost single-handedly established physical chemistry as an acknowledged academic discipline. In 1909 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on
catalysis
, chemical equilibria, and reaction velocities.
Ostwald graduated with a degree in chemistry from the University of Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia) and was appointed professor of chemistry at Riga in 1881, before he moved from Russia to Germany to become chair of the physical chemistry department at the University of Leipzig in 1887. For about twenty years he made Leipzig an ...