Critical‐point universality and fluids

DEC 01, 1977

Near a critical point the behavior of widely diverse systems simplifies to one of a few universal patterns—but fluids for years resisted being fit into the slot that theory had prepared for them.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3037826

Anneke Levelt Sengers

Robert Hocken

Jan V. Sengers

The similarity of critical behavior in dissimilar systems has long fascinated scientists. When Pierre Curie, in 1895, measured the magnetic equation of state of nickel, he was struck by how much the curves he obtained by plotting magnetization against temperature looked like the density–temperature isobars of carbon dioxide near the critical point. In 1907 Pierre Weiss fashioned his mean‐field theory describing the equation of state of nickel after Van der Waals’s equation for fluids.

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More about the Authors

Anneke Levelt Sengers. US National Bureau of Standards.

Robert Hocken. US National Bureau of Standards.

Jan V. Sengers. University of Maryland, College Park.