František "Franz" Wald (9 January 1861 – 19 October 1931) was a Czech professor of chemistry who contributed to metallurgy, analytical and physical chemistry. He questioned atomic and molecular approaches to understanding chemical phenomena.^[1]

Wald was born at Brandýsek, near Slaný, where his father, originally from Chemnitz, Germany, was a foreman of a workshop of the Austrian Railways. His mother was from Karlsbad. Wald went to school at Kladno and received a grant from the Austrian State Railways to study at Prague. Although German adopted a Czech nationality. He worked at the laboratory of Pražská železářská společnost, the main ironworks in Kladno. He became a chief chemist in 1886. In 1908 he became a professor at the Czech Technical University, Prague.^[2]

Wald examined chemical phenomena using the laws of thermodynamics, rather than examine them through ideas from atomic theory. He wrote on this in his Die Energie und ihre Entwertung (1888).^[3] His second book Chemie fází (Prague, 1918) examined his idea of phase as a fundamental concept rather than atoms.

• František Wald (1861-1930) - biography by Klaus Ruthenberg