Lars Onsager
(born Nov. 27, 1903, Oslo, Nor. — died Oct. 5, 1976, Coral Gables, Fla., U.S.) Norwegian-born U.S. chemist. He immigrated to the U.S. and taught principally at Yale University. His development of a general theory of irreversible chemical processes, described as the "fourth law of
thermodynamics," gained him a 1968 Nobel Prize. He also applied the laws of thermodynamics to systems not in
equilibrium. His explanation of the movement of
ions in
solution as related to
turbulence and fluid
density had a major effect on the development of
physical chemistry.
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