The collaboration between Korteweg and de Vries -- An enquiry into personalities

In the course of the years the names of Korteweg and de Vries have come to be closely associated. The equation which is named after them plays a fundamental role in the theory of non-linear partial differential equations. What are the origins of the doctoral dissertation of De Vries and of the Korteweg-de Vries paper? Bastiaan Willink, a distant relative of both of these mathematicians, has sought to answer these questions. This article is based on a lecture delivered by the author at the symposium dedicated to Korteweg and de Vries at University of Amsterdam in September 2003.