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.
Wald was born at
Brandýsek, near Slaný, where his father, originally from
Chemnitz
Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt , ) is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden. It is the 28th largest city of Germany as well as the fourth largest city in the area of former East Germany a ...
, Germany, was a foreman of a workshop of the Austrian Railways. His mother was from Karlsbad. Wald went to school at
Kladno
Kladno (; german: Kladen) is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 67,000 inhabitants. It is the largest city in the region and together with its adjacent suburban areas has a population of more than 110,000.
...
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.
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).
His second book ''Chemie fází'' (Prague, 1918) examined his idea of phase as a fundamental concept rather than atoms.
References
External links
František Wald (1861-1930) - biography by Klaus Ruthenberg
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wald, Frantisek
1861 births
1931 deaths
Czech chemists
Academic staff of Czech Technical University in Prague
Thermodynamicists
Chemists from Austria-Hungary