Wilhelm Friedrich Ostwald was a Baltic German chemist and philosopher. Ostwald is credited with being one of the founders of the field of physical chemistry, with Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Walther Nernst and Svante Arrhenius. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1909 for his scientific contributions to the fields of catalysis, chemical equilibria and reaction velocities. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1909, announced November 9, 1909. Wilhelm Ostwald, “in recognition of his work on catalysis and for his investigations into the fundamental principles governing chemical equilibria and rates of reaction”. Wilhelm Ostwald: born 1853, Riga, Russian Empire (now Latvia). Wiki link Data: the Nobel Foundation (CC0).