From nauss@ucmod2.che.uc.EDU Wed Mar 15 12:19:10 1995 Received: from ROLL.SAN.UC.EDU for nauss@ucmod2.che.uc.EDU by www.ccl.net (8.6.10/930601.1506) id LAA29723; Wed, 15 Mar 1995 11:38:09 -0500 Received: from ucmod2.che.uc.edu by UCBEH.SAN.UC.EDU (PMDF V4.3-10 #7238) id <01HO5WA9XK5CHSJAOF@UCBEH.SAN.UC.EDU>; Wed, 15 Mar 1995 11:34:13 -0500 (EST) Received: by ucmod2.che.uc.edu (920330.SGI/920502.SGI.AUTO) for @uc.edu:CHEMISTRY@ccl.net id AA01941; Wed, 15 Mar 95 11:37:28 -0500 Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 11:37:28 -0500 From: nauss@ucmod2.che.uc.EDU (Jeffrey L. Nauss) Subject: Summary of spelling of Van der Waals whatever To: CHEMISTRY@ccl.net Reply-to: nauss@ucmod2.che.uc.EDU Message-id: <9503151637.AA01941@ucmod2.che.uc.edu> Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Thanks to all who responded so quickly to my question about the correct spelling of van der Waals parameters. From the amount of traffic it generated on the CCL (and in my own personal e-mail!) it seems that others were confused or concerned as well. However, I think I can summarize the situation this way. The ACS Style Guide and two journal editors (at least the two people who said they were journal editors) recommend the way I wrote it in the first sentence: lower case "v" and "d" and no apostrophe. However, many people from the Netherlands have stated that van should be capitalized when used without a first name or initial. Personally, I will use a upper case "v" and no apostrophe... unless an editor wants something different. ;-) I have edited the responses and included some of them below. If you want the complete listing, see my WWW site at http://ucmodl.che.uc.edu/~nauss/homepage.html. There will be a link to the appropriate file. And remember: grammer flames are so pedantic. :-) Now on to more important matters: is it Stokes or Stokes' law? ;-) ============================================================================== The original question was: We have a minor controversy here. What is the correct spelling for van der Waals parameters or forces? Is it: a. van der Waal's parameters (lower case v and apostrophy) b. Van der Waal's parameters (upper case v and apostrophy) c. van der Waals parameters (lower case v and no apostrophy) d. Van der Waals parameters (upper case v and no apostrophy) e. some other permutation? =============================================================================== First, I thought this response from Marvin Waldman was interesting: 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. =============================================================================== Now for other selected responses are listed below: From: drablos@marvin.mr.sintef.no According to J.S. Dodd (Ed.), "The ACS Style Guide", ACS, Washington DC, 1986, p.28 the *recommended* spelling is "van der Waals". =============================================================================== From dave@terminus.chem.yale.edu The ACS style guide lists: van der Waals =============================================================================== From andrus@boc.ic.ee In my mind version c. i.e. " van der Waals " is a proper choice for spelling: " van " is not a part of the name but a title of the aristocrat, like "von", "don", so the lower case is justified. This version is also used in my paper in "Chemical Physics" (printing office of this journal is located in Netherlands) 189(1994)637. =============================================================================== From M.J.C.Crabbe@reading.ac.uk Oxford University Press opted for van der Waals in the manual for DeskTop Molecular Modeller program DTMM v. 3.0 =============================================================================== From GWA@CU.NIH.GOV (Bill Milne, Editor, JCICS) The man's name was "van der Waals". Things associated with the name (radii, etc) should be termed "van der Waals' radii". But usage in ACS journals, at least, is "van der Waals radii" =============================================================================== From stoutepf@chemsci1.dmpc.com Although his family name is van der Waals (so choices a and b are absolutely wrong), when used standalone (e.g. without a first name) the "v" in "van" gets capitalized. So option d would be the most correct one... ============================================================================== From: mirko@sara.nl (Mirko Kranenburg) Since the spelling of Van der Waals's name is becoming a real issue, I'll explain the origin of the capital or non-capital V. Since he was Dutch (yes, we do produce great chemists), his name is spelled" Johannes Diederik van der Waals", so no capital for the v. When you just quote the last name, it is "Van der Waals", capital V. So when you use his last name for the params, the official Dutch way of spelling would be with a capital V. =============================================================================== From: I think it is time to abandon the search for historical truth in favor of modern usage. At least for the USA and probably the Netherlands the situat ion is spelled out for us in the recent Chemical Reviews (Vol94, issue 7) Which is devoted entirely to papers about van der Waals molecules. Every paper (14 of them) employs the above style. There is also a paper by Prof van Duijnevedt, and one by Ad van der Avoird. It is aso clear that unless one is referring to parameter values proposed by a vdW the correct usage is van der waals parameters. ( Think,we never write Hartree's energy!!) =============================================================================== Thanks again and if you want to see the complete set of responses see my homepage at http://ucmodl.che.us.edu/~nauss/homepage.html. There will a link to the complete listing. Jeff Nauss **************************************************************************** * UU UU Jeffrey L. Nauss, PhD * * UU UU Director, Molecular Modeling Services * * UU UU Department of Chemistry * * UU UU CCCCCCC University of Cincinnati * * UU UU CCCCCCCC Cincinnati, OH 45221-0172 * * UUUU CC * * CC Telephone: 513-556-0148 Fax: 513-556-9239 * * CC * * CCCCCCCC e-mail: nauss@ucmod2.che.uc.edu * * CCCCCCC http://ucmodl.che.uc.edu/~nauss/homepage.html * ****************************************************************************