Walther Friedrich Hermann Nernst (25.06.1864 —18.02.1941) was a German physicist and physical chemist, one of the founders of physical chemistry, and a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences (1905). He was born in Briesen (now Wąbrzeźno, the Polish People's Republic). He graduated from the University of Würzburg (1887). In 1891 — 1902 he was professor at the University of Göttingen, in 1902-33 at the University of Berlin, where in 1905-22 he was also director of the Institute of Chemistry and in 1924—33 of the Institute of Physics.
His work was in thermodynamics, low-temperature physics and physical chemistry. In 1906 he stated that the entropy of a chemically homogeneous solid or liquid body at absolute zero is equal to zero (the Nernst theorem). This theorem is often called the third law of thermodynamics. He predicted (1906) the effect of the “degeneracy” of a gas. In 1911 he extended the concept of quantisation to the rotational motion of particles and, together with F. Lindemann, proposed a formula for the heat capacity of a solid (the Nernst — Lindemann formula).
In 1886 he detected the appearance of an electric field in a body in the presence of a temperature gradient perpendicular to an external magnetic field (the Nernst — Ettingshausen effect). He developed a method of determining the dielectric constant of conductors with the help of the Wheatstone bridge. He also developed the theory of electromotive forces in solutions with a local variation of concentration, the theory of the electrolytic dissolution of metals, the theory of electrode potentials and diffusion potentials, and the diffusion theory of the kinetics of heterogeneous chemical reactions at a phase boundary. He built a source of radiation (the Nernst lamp). He is also known for the Nernst distribution law (1890).
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1920). A foreign member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1926) and of the Royal Society (1932).