Władysław Natanson (18.06.1864-26.02.1937) was a Polish theoretical physicist and a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1900). He was born in Warsaw. He graduated from St Petersburg University (1886) and continued his studies at the Cavendish Laboratory under J. J. Thomson. From 1891 he worked at the University of Kraków, where he was professor in 1894—1935.
His research was in the kinetic theory of gases, thermodynamics, the theory of the motion of a viscous fluid, optics, electron theory, quantum mechanics and the history of science. He was a pioneer in the study of thermodynamically irreversible processes. He extended the theory of the Cotton — Mouton effect. He was the founder and first president (1920) of the Polish Physical Society.