Professor Walther Nernst, c mid-20th century

Walther Nernst, born 25 June 1864, in Prussia, died 18 November 1941. Nernst was a German physical chemist known for his contributions to thermodynamics, physical chemistry, electrochemistry, and physics. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1920 for his work on the formulation of the Nernst heat theorem which facilitated work on the third law of thermodynamics. He also developed the Nernst equation in 1887. He studied at the University of Zürich in 1883, and then at Berlin, and then back to Zürich. He wrote his doctoral thesis at the University of Graz, and then moved to the University of Würzburg where he defended his thesis. He began work at Leipzig University, moved to University of Heidelberg, and then University of Göttingen. He was offered a professorship in Munich, but the government wanted him to stay in Prussia, so they made a chair for him at Göttingen. He married Emma Lohmeyer in 1892, together they two sons and three daughters. Both of Nernst's sons died fighting in WWI. He partook in WWI as a member of the voluntary driver's corps, and came up with the idea of using tear gas to drive soldiers out of trenches. This idea was then utilised by Fritz Haber to defend the use of chlorine gas in warfare. He was awarded the Iron Cross second class. In 1933, after learning a colleague had been removed for being Jewish, Nernst sought to work for a institution not controlled by the government, but unsuccessful, he travelled to Oxford to receive an honorary degree. Nernst was a vocal critic of Hitler and Nazism. He had a heart attack in 1939 and died in 1941. He has been buried three times.