Who are London and van der Waals ?

Van der Waals' and London's  theories are widely accepted nowadays, their combination illustrates how the "new physics" (quantum physics used by London) solved long lingering problems that classical physics could by nature not solve (van der  Waals approach of the condensed phase and Debye-Keesom's theory inadequacy to explain Xe ability to form a condensed phase). If some effects could be treated satisfactorily by classical physics (Debye and Keesom effects), London's approach of bonding by the use of quantum physics is a significant disruptive move that was widely recognized  only a few years after his demise in 1954 and gained wide acceptance later on. Pauling's move to popularize quantum chemistry and develop a refurbished view of the valence theory by spreading the notions of molecular orbital interactions among chemists did not allow to broaden the acceptance of London's theory among chemists.  It is rather recently, with the development of the density functional theory and its broad use by chemists to investigate chemical bonding under new lights that London's views regained interest among theoreticians and experimentalists.

Quite interestingly both van der Waals and London started their professional lives as high school teachers before moving to the university to get a degree and dedicate their lives to academic research. They both made decisive professional moves in periods shaken by intense scientific debates about the nature of cohesion in matter, which surely stirred their curiosity.

• Who was Fritz London ?

• Here what Linus Pauling has to say about him :

http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/pauling/bond/audio/1963v.6-london.html

London's theory explained by L. Pauling

Clip

Creator: Linus Pauling
Associated: Fritz London
Clip ID: 1963v.6-london

Full Work

Creator: Linus Pauling, Helmut Krauch
Associated: Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions

Date: 1963
Genre: sound
ID: 1963v.6

• Quotes by or related to Fritz London

"I slept till very late in the morning, found I couldn’t do work at all, had a quick lunch, went to sleep again in the afternoon and slept until five o’clock. When I woke up...I had clearly...the picture before me of the two wave functions of two hydrogen molecules joined together with a plus and minus and with the exchange in it. So I was very excited, and I got up and thought it out. As soon as I was clear that the exchange did play a role, I called London up, and he came to me as quickly as possible. Meanwhile I had already started developing a sort of perturbation theory. We worked together then until rather late at night, and then by that time most of the paper was clear.... Well...at least it was not later than the following day that we had the formation of the hydrogen molecule in our hands, and we also knew that there was a second mode of interaction which meant repulsion between two hydrogen atoms, also new at the time –- new to chemists, too."
Walter Heitler. AHQP (Archive for the History of Quantum Physics), volume 6. March 18, 1963.

"The paper of Heitler and London on H₂ for the first time seemed to provide a basic understanding, which could be extended to other molecules. Linus Pauling at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena soon used the valence bond method. . . . As a master salesman and showman, Linus persuaded chemists all over the world to think of typical molecular structures in terms of the valence bond method."
Robert Mulliken. Life of a Scientist, pp. 60-61. 1989.

•  Who was Johannes Diderik van der Waals ?

"In his doctoral dissertation at Leiden, published in 1873, Van der Walls modified the ideal laws to take into account the space occupied by molecules, and the fact that real molecules, unlike ideal points, do attract and repel each other.  He was also able to show that the transition from liquid to gas is a continuous transition, not an abrupt, discontinuous one."

https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/johannes-diderik-van-der-wals

https://history.aip.org/phn/11811009.html