František "Franz" Wald (9 January 1861 – 19 October 1931) was a Czech professor of chemistry who contributed to metallurgy, analytical and physical chemistry. He questioned atomic and molecular approaches to understanding chemical phenomena.[1]
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Wald was born at Brandýsek, near Slaný, where his father, originally from Chemnitz, Germany, was a foreman of a workshop of the Austrian Railways. His mother was from Karlsbad. Wald went to school at Kladno and received a grant from the Austrian State Railways to study at Prague. Although German adopted a Czech nationality. He worked at the laboratory of Pražská železářská společnost, the main ironworks in Kladno. He became a chief chemist in 1886. In 1908 he became a professor at the Czech Technical University, Prague.[2]
Wald examined chemical phenomena using the laws of thermodynamics, rather than examine them through ideas from atomic theory. He wrote on this in his Die Energie und ihre Entwertung (1888).[3] His second book Chemie fází (Prague, 1918) examined his idea of phase as a fundamental concept rather than atoms.
References
edit- ^ Brauner, B. (1931). "Prof. František Wald". Nature. 127 (3193): 64–65. doi:10.1038/127064b0. S2CID 4084548.
- ^ Ruthenberg, Klaus (2012). "František Wald (1861–1930)". Philosophy of Chemistry. Volume 6. Elsevier. pp. 125–131. doi:10.1016/b978-0-444-51675-6.50011-6. ISBN 978-0-444-51675-6.
- ^ Wald, F. (1896). "Chemistry and its Laws". The Journal of Physical Chemistry. 1 (1): 21–33. doi:10.1021/j150583a002. ISSN 0092-7325.