Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, to Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff Sr. and Alida Kolff van't Hoff on August 30. , 1852. He was the third of seven children. His siblings were Herminus Johannes van't Hoff, Hendrika Adriana van't Hoff, Jacob Marius van't Hoff, Cornelis van't Hoff, Maria Margaretha van't Hoff and Lambertus van't Hoff. His religion is unknown; however, in his time, the Dutch Reformation had just occurred, and as a result, the Dutch Reformed Church, as well as the Catholic Church, were very popular. His father was a doctor. His family was considered middle or upper class and was well respected. Van't Hoff had a fairly typical childhood. He got along well with his family and did very well in school. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Van't Hoff was fortunate to attend the Hoogere Burgerschool, a Dutch reform secondary school in Rotterdam, which was a math and science based high school. Defying his father's wish to become a doctor, van't Hoff studied chemistry at the Technical University of Delft in 1869. He then studied mathematics and physics at the University of Leiden. He then went to Germany to continue his studies in chemistry with August Kekule at the University of Bonn. Van't Hoff then went to France to study chemistry with Charles-Adolphe Wurtz at the School of Medicine. Van't Hoff completed his doctoral dissertation in 1874 at Utrecht University. Before completing his doctoral dissertation, van't Hoff published his famous 11-page pamphlet on valence electrons in the carbon atom. His proposal was that "if the four bonds (valence electrons) of the carbon atom pointed toward the corners of a tetrahedron, this would explain many cases of isomerism" (Britannica 1), which, according to the Merriam Dictionary -Webster, “the relationship between two or more nuclides having the same mass numbers and atomic numbers but different energy states and radioactive decay rates.” He also proposed that "if all four bonds in the carbon atom pointed toward the corners of a tetrahedron, this would explain why certain solutions of certain chemical compounds would rotate a plane of polarized light." His theory is one of the most fundamental concepts in organic chemistry and the foundation of stereochemistry (the study of the three-dimensional properties of molecules). He even created 3D paper models of tetrahedral molecules to share his research with other renowned chemists. Although his pamphlet was important to the scientific world, van't Hoff's greatest contribution was his discovery of osmotic pressure and the chemical equilibrium of solutions. In 1884, van't Hoff published his research on chemical kinetics in a book entitled "Etudes de Dynamique Chimique", which translates as "Studies in Chemical Dynamics". In this book he describes a new method for determining the order of a reaction. His method was to use graphs and apply the laws of thermodynamics to chemical equilibria. Van't Hoff also studied the chemical balance of salts, particularly the salt found in Stassfurt, Germany. He published his findings in a two-volume book titled “On the Formation of Oceanic Salt Deposits.” Van't Hoff conducted numerous studies to learn more about osmotic pressure. In his Nobel Prize speech, he stated that "osmotic pressure is the pressure that allows water but not sugar to pass, thus causing the water in solution to be forced through the membrane." It is then