Fritz London

Before London Dispersion Forces were making high school chemistry students weep over molecular interactions, Fritz London was busy figuring out how the universe sticks together when nobody is looking. Born in Breslau to a German-Jewish academic family, Fritz started out studying philosophy, which usually leads to unemployment or writing unreadable essays. Instead, he pivoted to theoretical physics, teaming up with Walter Heitler to explain the covalent bond via quantum mechanics. Chemistry, meet modern physics; modern physics, meet your new best friend.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Germany abruptly decided it didn't need genius quantum physicists if they happened to be Jewish. London was promptly stripped of his post at the University of Berlin. Unlike some who dithered, London took his brilliant brain elsewhere—first to Oxford, then Paris, and eventually to Duke University in North Carolina, where he tackled macroscopic quantum phenomena like superconductivity and superfluid helium. Because when the world is going up in flames, what else would you study besides liquid helium chilling near absolute zero?

London’s brother Heinz was also an accomplished physicist, making the London family a two-for-one deal for the advancement of low-temperature science. Fritz died far too young at 54, but his namesake London dispersion forces and the Fritz London Memorial Prize ensure that whenever molecules awkwardly cling to each other or physicists achieve sub-Kelvin glory, his name is spoken with reverence.