Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 20 May 1983:
Vol. 220. no. 4599, pp. 787 - 794
DOI: 10.1126/science.220.4599.787
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Van der Waals Picture of Liquids, Solids, and Phase Transformations

David Chandler 1, John D. Weeks 2, and Hans C. Andersen 3

1 Professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois, Urbana 61801
2 Member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey 07974
3 Professor of chemistry at Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305

The van der Waals picture focuses on the differing roles of the strong short-ranged repulsive intermolecular forces and the longer ranged attractions in determining the structure and dynamics of dense fluids and solids. According to this physical picture, the attractive interactions help fix the volume of the system, but the arrangements and motions of molecules within that volume are determined primarily by the local packing and steric effects produced by the repulsive forces. This very useful approach, its limitations, and its successful application to a wide variety of static and dynamic phenomena in condensed matter systems are reviewed.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Uniaxial and biaxial nematic liquid crystals.
T.J Dingemans, L.A Madsen, N.A Zafiropoulos, W. Lin, and E.T Samulski (2006)
Phil Trans R Soc A 364, 2681-2696
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Nature of Stress on the Atomic Level in Dense Polymer Systems.
J. Gao and J. H. Weiner (1994)
Science 266, 748-752
   Abstract »    PDF »
Liquids at Large Negative Pressures: Water at the Homogeneous Nucleation Limit.
Q. ZHENG, D. J. DURBEN, G. H. WOLF, and C. A. ANGELL (1991)
Science 254, 829-832
   Abstract »    PDF »
Why Gases Dissolve in Liquids.
G. L. POLLACK (1991)
Science 251, 1323-1330
   Abstract »    PDF »
Freezing.
A. D. J. HAYMET (1987)
Science 236, 1076-1080
   Abstract »    PDF »
Randomly Exact Methods.
J. D. DOLL and D. L. FREEMAN (1986)
Science 234, 1356-1360
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)