Affiliation:
1. Department of Social Sciences RPTU Kaiserslautern, Erwin‐Schrödinger‐Str. 44 67663 Kaiserslautern Germany
2. Laboratory of Engineering Thermodynamics RPTU Kaiserslautern, Erwin‐Schrödinger‐Str. 44 67663 Kaiserslautern Germany
Abstract
AbstractThis contribution describes two episodes from the history of the Lennard‐Jones (LJ) potential. The first, located in the 1920s and 1930s, is about a computational approach that aimed at pragmatics rather than truth and that remained remarkably robust when quantum theory arrived. The second episode covers the birth of the LJ substance in 1964. Due to increasing interest in computer methods, simulated model substances became objects on their own, the prime targets of investigation. The history of the LJ potential and substance exemplifies the dynamic relationship between prediction, theory, mathematization, and computer instrumentation.
Funder
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Reference26 articles.
1. Thermophysical Properties of the Lennard-Jones Fluid: Database and Data Assessment
2. A child of prediction. On the History, Ontology, and Computation of the Lennard-Jonesium
3. Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen
4. Cohesion
5. Equation (1) is often ascribed to Mie's 1903 [6] paper in the Annals. It is called Mie potential although Mie does not explicitly use this expression for a potential. Grüneisen [7] works with the same function in 1912 and notes problems with the virial coefficient becoming infinite cf. Rowlinson [3] for details.