Phenomenon of the van der pol equation

This review is devoted to the famous Dutch scientist Balthasar van der Pol, who made a significant contribution to the development of radio-engineering, physics and mathematics. The review outlines only one essential point of his work, associated with the equation that bears his name, and has a surprisingly wide range of applications in natural sciences. In this review we discuss the following matters.
• The biography of van der Pol, history of his equation and supposed precursors.
• The contribution of A.A. Andronov in the theory of self-oscillations.
• Van der Pol equation and modeling of processes in the human body (the model of the heart beat and of the «heart-vessels» system; modeling of processes in the large intestine; models of excitatory and inhibitory neural interactions; modeling synchronization in processing and transfer of information in neural networks; various problems related to human musculoskeletal apparatus; modeling the vocal cords).
• Development and modifications of the van der Pol equation.