Wilhelm Ostwald. The Creator of Physical Chemistry

The essay is dedicated to the outstanding Russian-German physical chemist Wilhelm Ostwald, Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry in 1909. His scientific and organizational activities, which began at the University of Dorpat, continued at the Riga Polytechnic, and were most fruitful at the Leipzig Physicochemical Institute, are briefly reviewed. Ostwald's name is associated with the revolution in chemistry that occurred at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Particular attention is paid to his world-famous scientific school and its lessons. Ostwald's denial of atoms as material objects, which surprised his contemporaries, is discussed. The phenomenon of «Ostwald ripening» — the enlargement of crystals in a polydisperse system — which is widespread in crystallogenesis, is also discussed.