Subject: Spelling of v(V?)an der Waals('?)

From: [email-masked] (Marvin Waldman)
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 19:55:47 -0800

I found it somewhat amusing that my copy of Physical Chemistry by Moore,
Third Edition, (Copyright 1962) - that's not the year I used it (not
even close), so don't try to guess my age from that date - has the following
usages of van der Waals in the same book(!) :

Page 18:

	Caption for Table 1.2:
		Critical Point Data and van der Waals Constants

Page 19, second line from bottom:

	The van der Waals equation provides ...

Page 20, third line from top:

	... the van der Waals' equation.
                        ^^^^^^

Emphasis added by me.

Page 21:

	Title for Section 16:

	16.  THE VAN DER WAALS EQUATION AND LIQUEFACTION OF GASES

Page 21, next line(!):

	Van der Waals' equation provides ...
                ^^^^^^

Conclusion:
   Usage or non-usage of the apostrophe (or even being consistent
about it) does not constitute grounds for rejection of your article,
book, user manual, or any other document from which you hope to achieve
fame and fortune.  The same apparently applies to using a small
or capital "v".
------------------------------------------------------------------------

		Addtional Historical Background

By the way, it appears that there are several van der Waals'
involved in the theory of intermolecular forces.
The most famous one (associated with the van der Waals equation of
state) is J.D. van der Waals Sr. as referenced on page 131 of Molecular Theory
of Gases and Liquids by Hirschfelder, Curtiss, and Bird (Copyright
1954 - with notes and corrections added in March, 1964) as follows:

"The experimentally observed deviations from the ideal gas law
were interpreted qualitatively by van der Waals (Ref 1) ..."

Ref 1: J.D. van der Waals Sr., Doctoral Dissertation (Leiden 1873).

It is the same van der Waals to whom credit is generally given
for intermolecular attractive forces as described on page 206
of Theoretical Inorganic Chemistry by Day and Selbin (Second Edition,
Copyright 1969) as follows:

"The existence of such weak attractive forces was first recognized
by van der Waals as early as 1813 (this is clearly a typo!).
At that time, he introduced the a/V**2 term in his equation of state
to allow for such interactions.  It is for this reason that these
forces are referred to as van der Waals forces."

In Moore's Physical Chemistry text, van der Waals (in the context
of the person discovering the Equation of State) is referenced in
the index on page vii of the Index of Names as
van der Waals, J.C.  This again appears to be a typo since the
same van der Waals is listed on page 221 as having discovered the
Equation of State for gases in 1873.

However, there are two more van der Waals(!) mentioned in Theory
of Intermolecular Forces by Margenau and Kestner (Second Edition,
Copyright 1971).  On page 8, they describe:

  "J.H. van der Waals (1908, Part I, pp. 207 et seq) returns to
Laplace's problem of capillarity, but with special concern for the
nature and mathematical form of the forces.  Ignoring previous
specific formulations he invokes what is now called the Yukawa
potential, V = -A/r x exp(-r/a), A and a being empirical constants."

And, on page 10, they write:

  "The idea of electronic dipoles was elaborated in Reinganum's
second paper which appeared after van der Waals (J.D. van der
Waals Jr. (1909)) had treated the interaction of rotating dipoles
statistically, but in a manner not wholly convincing to Reinganum."

Apparently, this latter van der Waals is the son of van der Waals Sr.

The references for the latter two van der Waals' are given
in the Bibiliography as:

van der Waals, J. D. Jr. (1909) Amst.Acad.Proc., pp. 132, 315.

van der Waals, J. H. (1908) Lehrbuch der Thermodynamik, Mass and Van
   Suchtelen, Leipzig, Part 1.

Regards,

Marvin Waldman, Ph.D.
Manager, Rational Drug Design
Biosym Technologies, Inc.
e-mail: [email-masked]