Johannes Diderik van der Waals higher temperatures. Nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and helium subsequently succumbed to liquefaction. Heike Kamerlingh Onnes was significantly influenced by the pioneer work of van der Waals. In 1908, Onnes became the first to make liquid helium; this led directly to his 1911 discovery of superconductivity. Van der Waals started his career as a school teacher. He became the first physics professor of the University of Amsterdam when in 1877 the old Athenaeum was upgraded to Municipal University. Van der Waals won the 1910 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids. Johannes Diderik
History of thermodynamics years later by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, who based it on the Greek word "enthalpein" meaning "to warm". Building on these foundations, those as Lars Onsager, Erwin Schrödinger, and Ilya Prigogine, and others, functioned to bring these engine "concepts" into the thoroughfare of almost every modern-day branch of science. The idea that heat is a form of motion is perhaps an ancient one and is certainly discussed by Francis Bacon in 1620 in his "Novum Organum". The first written scientific reflection on the microscopic nature of heat is probably to be found in a work by Mikhail Lomonosov, in which he