The birth of a new discipline, called ‘physical chemistry’, is sometimes related to the names OSTWALD, ARRHENIUS and VAN’T HOFF and dated back to the year 1887, when OSTWALD founded the Zeitschrift für physikalische Chemie. But as many historians have pointed out, the phrase ‘physical chemistry’ was widely used before that and the topics under investigation partially go back to Robert BOYLE’s a...
