The molecule models, Van 't Hoff,1875
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Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff was born in Rotterdam in 1852 and was one of the first intake of Dutch pupils to study at a Higher Civil School (HBS). He was to win the first Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1901.
Van 't Hoff became famous through his contribution to stereochemistry. He discovered that the structure of organic molecules could be satisfactorily described with the aid of tetrahedrons. Working on this assumption he was able to explain phenomena not yet understood in organic chemistry.
In order to illustrate his theory Van 't Hoff built hand-made cardboard tetrahedric models of various organic molecules. He made the models in Museum Boerhaave in 1875 for a fellow-student, who used them for his thesis.
Van 't Hoff was to become world-famous with his structural theory, but he did not win the Nobel Prize for it. He won that with quite different research. You could say that he actually deserved two…