[3] His three older brothers Adrian, Jr., Hargrove, and William were all All-Southern college football players for the Alabama Crimson Tide.

in mechanical engineering (1923) from The University of Alabama where he was a founding member of The Castle Club (later became Mu Chapter[4] of Theta Tau).

After a year working for the Alabama Power Company, Van de Graaff attended the Marie Curie lectures at the Sorbonne in 1925.

In the year that he died, the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator was formed, named after him, notwithstanding the spelling errors.

Van de Graaff generators are used primarily as DC power supplies for linear atomic particle accelerators used for nuclear physics experiments.

Small Van de Graaff generators are built by hobbyists and scientific apparatus companies and are used to demonstrate the effects of high DC potentials.

More modern Van de Graaff generators are insulated by pressurized dielectric gas, usually freon or sulfur hexafluoride.

During recent years, Van de Graaff generators have been slowly replaced by solid-state DC power supplies without moving parts.