Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff (30.08.1852—1.03.1911) was a Dutch physical chemist and one of the founders of physical chemistry and stereochemistry. He was born in Rotterdam. He graduated from the Higher Technical School in Delft (1871). He continued his studies in Leiden, Bonn, Paris and Utrecht. He was professor at the universities of Amsterdam (from 1878), Leipzig (from 1887) and Berlin (from 1896), and director of the Institute of Physical Chemistry in Amsterdam (from 1888).
In 1874—75 he was the first to develop the theory of the spatial arrangement of atoms in the molecules of organic compounds (the stereochemical hypothesis), and he derived one of the fundamental equations of thermodynamics, the isochore equation, as well as the formula for the dependence of chemical affinity on the equilibrium constant of a chemical reaction at constant temperature (the isotherm equation). He developed the theory of dilute solutions, starting from the analogy between substances in the gaseous and in the dissolved state, extended the laws of ideal gases to dilute solutions and derived the law of osmotic pressure (van 't Hoff's law). In 1890 he introduced the concept of solid solutions, applying to solids his ideas about solutions. For his research on chemical dynamics and on osmotic pressure van 't Hoff was in 1901 the first to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
A member of a number of academies of sciences and scientific societies. The H. Davy medal (1893).