
The three "chiefs" of the Dutch school, according to French physicist Pierre Duhem, which seems to have generally been launched in 1890 with the publication of Dutch physical chemist Johannes van der Waals' famous paper on the thermodynamic properties of fluid mixtures, wherein his van der waals equation, the equation of state for "ideal gas like" fluids, was derived.

The three "chiefs" of the Dutch school, according to French physicist Pierre Duhem, which seems to have generally been launched in 1890 with the publication of Dutch physical chemist Johannes van der Waals' famous paper on the thermodynamic properties of fluid mixtures, wherein his van der waals equation, the equation of state for "ideal gas like" fluids, was derived.

In thermodynamics schools, the Dutch school of thermodynamics or “Dutch school”, a term dating to before 1903, is associated with the work of Dutch physical chemist Johannes van der Waals and Dutch chemist Bakhuis Roozeboom at the University of Amsterdam. [1] Others associated with the Dutch school include: Franciscus Schreinemakers (student of Roozeboom) and Jacobus van’t Hoff. [7]

The “chiefs of the Dutch school”, according to French physicist Pierre Duhem, are Van der Waals, Roozboom, and Van’t Hoff. Van't Hoff, however, is also said to have had his own school, the "Van't Hoff school". [6]

Overview
Van der Waals, who had been influenced significantly in his career path by German physicist Rudolf Clausius’ 1857 treatise Über die Art der Bewegung welche wir Wärme nennen (On the Nature of Motion we Call Heat), in 1876 became the first professor of physics at the newly established University of Amsterdam, where he stayed until his death in 1923. [2]

During these years, van der Waals introduced a newly developing Dutch chemist named Bakhuis Roozeboom to the theoretical works of American engineer Willard Gibbs on the phase rule which so far had little experimental verification in chemistry, prompting him to start a lifelong research program on phase equilibria. In 1896, Roozeboom became professor of chemistry in Amsterdam, where he died in 1907. [3] Roozeboom’s main work was main work was in the field of thermodynamics, he studied the equilibrium of multiple-phase systems.

The theoretical foundations for this were laid by Gibbs with his phase rule, but Roozeboom would be the one to apply the theory and demonstrate its usefulness. He is mainly remembered for his melting phase diagrams of metal alloys, i.e. studying how mixtures of metals melt depending on the relative amounts of the components, which is important for metallurgy. He also contributed to the science of chiral substances, he clarified how to distinguish the different types of crystalline racemates and predicted how mixtures of enantiomers behave in a heterogeneous system of solid and solution. [4]

A recent summary of the Dutch school is given by Dutch-American fluid thermodynamicist Johanna Sengers, in her 2002 book How Fluids Unmix: Discoveries of the School of Van der Waals and Kamerling Onnes, wherein she focuses on the Van der Waals equation, the law of corresponding states, liquid mixtures, theory of plaits on surface, fluid phase diagrams, criticality and critical exponents, and the impact of these on the subjects on the Dutch school. The book has back ground on Johannes van der Waals (1890), Heike Kamerling-Onnes, J.D. Korteweg (1891, 1903), the mathematical chemistry work or Johannes van Laar (1905), experimental physicist J.P. Kuenen, J.E. Verschaffelt, Willem Keesom, and Jacobus van’t Hoff. The book gives an inside look at the cooperative efforts of the members of the Dutch school in their effort to expand the knowledge of the thermodynamics of fluids (fluid thermodynamics), fluid mixtures, and the subject of the critical point. [8]

References
1. (a) Emmerik, Everard Peter van. (2005). Dr. J. J. Van Laar and the Dutch School of Thermodynamics: a Biography of a Remarkable Scientist. Publisher: S.N.
(b) Autobiography (Ilya Prigogine) - NobelPrize.org.
2. Van der Waals, Johannes, D. (1910). "The Equation of State for Gases and Liquids." Nobel Lecture, December 12.
3. J. M. van Bemmelen, W. P. Jorissen, W. E. Ringer, (1907). Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft, 40, 5141.
4. H. W. B. Roozeboom, (1899). Zeitschrift fuer Physikalische Chemie, Stoechiometrie und Verwandtschaftslehre, 28, 494-517.
5. Duhem, Pierre M.M. (1903). Thermodynamics and Chemistry (pg. x). J. Wiley & sons .
6. Kipnis, Aleksandr I., Iavelov, Boris, E.,, Rowlinson, John S. (1996). Van der Waals and Molecular Science (Gibbsian school, Van’t Hoff school, pg. 278). Oxford University Press.
7. (a) Franciscus Schreinemakers – Mathematics Genealogy Project.
(b) Franciscus Schreinemakers (1864-1945) (Dutch → English) – Biographical Dictionary of the Netherlands.
8. (a) Sengers, Johanna L. (2002). How Fluids Unmix: Discoveries of the School of Van der Waals and Kamerling Onnes (abs). Koninklijke Nerlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen.
(b) Johanna Levelt Sengers (faculty) – UCLA.

Further reading
● Levelt, A.H.M. (1992). “Van der Waals, Korteweg, van Laar: a Maple Excursion into the Thermodynamics of Binary Systems”, Lecture at seminar SCAFI, Amsterdam 5-6 Nov.