Fritz London

German-Jewish physicist whose fundamental contributions to the theories of chemical bonding and of intermolecular forces (London dispersion forces) are today considered classic and are discussed in standard textbooks of physical chemistry. With his brother Heinz London, he made a significant contribution to understanding electromagnetic properties of superconductors with the London equations and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on five separate occasions.

Being a Jew, London lost his position at the University of Berlin after Hitler's Nazi Party passed the 1933 racial laws. He took visiting positions in England and France, and emigrated to the United States in 1939, of which he became a naturalized citizen in 1945. Later in his life, London was a professor at Duke University. He was awarded the Lorentz Medal in 1953. He died from a heart ailment in Durham, North Carolina on 30 March 1954, aged 54.