Fritz London

Fritz London
Fritz London (1928)
Born	Fritz Wolfgang London (1900-03-07)March 7, 1900 Breslau, Silesia, Germany
Died	March 30, 1954(1954-03-30) (aged 54) Durham, North Carolina
Residence	Germany, Great Britain, United States
Citizenship	German, later US
Nationality	German
Fields	Theoretical physics
Institutions	Duke University University of Berlin University of Oxford Collège de France
Academic advisors	Max von Laue
Known for	London equations Work on quantum theory London moment London dispersion forces;
Notable awards	Lorentz Medal (1953)

Fritz Wolfgang London (March 7, 1900 – March 30, 1954) was a Jewish-German physicist and professor at Duke University. His fundamental contributions to the theories of chemical bonding and of intermolecular forces (London dispersion forces) are today considered classic and are discussed in standard textbooks of physical chemistry. With his brother Heinz London, he made a significant contribution to understanding electromagnetic properties of superconductors with the London equations and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on five separate occasions.

London was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland) as the son of Franz London (1863-1917). Being a Jew, London lost his position at the University of Berlin after Hitler's Nazi Party passed the 1933 racial laws. He took visiting positions in England and France, and eventually emigrated to the United States in 1939, of which he became a naturalized citizen in 1945. London was in his later life a professor at Duke University. He was awarded the Lorentz Medal in 1953. He died in Durham, North Carolina in 1954.

London's early work with Walter Heitler on chemical bonding is now treated in any textbook on physical chemistry. This paper was the first to properly explain the bonding in a homonuclear molecule as H₂. It is no coincidence that the Heitler-London work appeared shortly after the introduction of quantum mechanics by Heisenberg and Schrödinger, because quantum mechanics was crucial in their explanation of the covalent bond. Another necessary ingredient was the realization that electrons are indistinguishable, as expressed in the Pauli principle.