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van der Waals radius

van der Waals radius noun: the radius of an imaginary hard sphere representing the distance of closest approach from one atom to another.

Noun

van der Waals radius (plural van der Waals radii)

  1. The radius of an imaginary hard sphere representing the distance of closest approach from one atom to another.

Forms of van der Waals radius

pluralvan der Waals radii

Origin of van der Waals radius

Named after Johannes Diderik van der Waals, the first to recognise that atoms were not simply points and to demonstrate the physical consequences of their size.

Questions about van der Waals radius

What does van der Waals radius mean?
Van der Waals radius means the radius of an imaginary hard sphere representing the distance of closest approach from one atom to another.
What part of speech is van der Waals radius?
Van der Waals radius is a noun.
What is the plural of van der Waals radius?
The plural of van der Waals radius is van der Waals radii.

Words near van der Waals radius in the dictionary

  1. van der Waals force
  2. van der Waals forces
  3. van der Waals gas
  4. van der Waals gases
  5. Van der Waals law
  6. van der Waals radius
  7. van der Waals strain
  8. van der Waals volume
  9. van der Waerden's theorem
  10. van der Woude syndrome
  11. Van Devender

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: van der Waals radius (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “van der Waals radius.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/van_der_waals_radius. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.