page_title: Leiden
section_title: Science
hierarchical_section_title: Leiden / Notable inhabitants / Science
caption_attribution_description: Johannes Diderik van der Waals Dansk: Johannes Diderik van der Waals. Esperanto: Johannes Diderik van der Waals Français&#160;: Johannes Diderik van der Waals Română: Johannes Diderik van der Waals
context_page_description: Leiden is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden had a population of 123,856 in August 2017, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration with its suburbs Oegstgeest, Leiderdorp, Voorschoten and Zoeterwoude with 206,647 inhabitants. The Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics further includes Katwijk in the agglomeration which makes the total population of the Leiden urban agglomeration 270,879, and in the larger Leiden urban area also Teylingen, Noordwijk, and Noordwijkerhout are included with in total 348,868 inhabitants. Leiden is located on the Oude Rijn, at a distance of some 20 kilometres from The Hague to its south and some 40 km from Amsterdam to its north. The recreational area of the Kaag Lakes lies just to the northeast of Leiden.
  A university city since 1575, Leiden has been one of Europe's most prominent scientific centres for more than four centuries. Leiden is a typical university city, university buildings are scattered throughout the city and the many students from all over the world give the city a bustling, vivid and international atmosphere.
context_section_description: Charles de L'Écluse (1526–1609) botanist, horticulturist and director of Hortus Botanicus Leiden
  Ludolph van Ceulen (1540–1610) mathematician, computed the number π, Pi
  Willebrord Snellius (1580–1626) a Dutch astronomer and mathematician >
  Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738) a botanist, chemist, Christian humanist and physician 
  Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (1697–1770) a German-born Dutch anatomist 
  Gerard van Swieten (1700–1772) a Dutch physician, personal physician of Maria Theresa
  Petrus Camper FRS (1722–1789) a Dutch physician, anatomist, physiologist, midwife, zoologist, anthropologist, palaeontologist and a naturalist 
  Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866) a German physician and botanist, studied Japanese flora and fauna
  Johannes Diderik van der Waals  (1837–1923) a Dutch theoretical physicist, winner of the 1910 Nobel prize in Physics
  Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) a Dutch physicist, joint winner of the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics
  Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853–1926) a Dutch physicist and winner of the 1913 Nobel prize in Physics
  Willem Einthoven (1860–1927) a Dutch physician and physiologist
  Pieter Zeeman (1865–1943) a Dutch physicist, joint winner of the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics
  Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) a Dutch mathematician, physicist and astronomer
  Albert Einstein (1879–1955) lecturer/researcher at Leiden University, variously between 1916 and 1930
  Paul Ehrenfest (1880–1933) an Austrian/Dutch theoretical physicist, contributed to statistical mechanics
  Geertruida de Haas-Lorentz (1885–1973) a female Dutch physicist, worked on Brownian motion and electrical noise theory
  Jan Oort (1900–1992) a Dutch astronomer, pioneer in radio astronomy
  Hendrik Casimir (1909–2000) a Dutch physicist
  Ewine van Dishoeck (born 1955) a Dutch astronomer, chemist, molecular astrophysicist and academic
caption: Johannes Diderik van der Waals
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