Walther Hermann Nernst (1864-1941)

German physical chemist born at Briesen, West Prussia and educated at Zurich, Berlin, Graz, and Wurzburg Universities. Took his PhD at Wurzburg in 1887. Was an assistant to Ostwald and devised his theory of electric potential and conduction of electrolytic solutions in 1889 (the Nernst Equation). Also in 1889 he introduced the important theory of solubility product in explaining precipitation reactions. He was a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Gottingen from 1891 to 1905 and a professor at the University of Berlin from 1905 until his death. He developed the Third Law of Thermodynamics in 1906, and in 1918 explained the H₂-Cl₂ explosion on exposure to light as an atom chain reaction. He was the director of the Institute for Experimental Physics from 1924 to 1933. Nernst was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1920 for his work in thermochemistry. He also invented an electric piano and a long-lived electric glow lamp.