Lifshitz macroscopic theory particle interactions

A more satisfactory method for calculating the attraction between colloidal particles is the macroscopic continuum theory due to Lifshitz (Lifshitz, 1956 Dzyaloshinskii et al., 1961) and subsequently elaborated by Ninham and coworkers (Mahanty and Ninham, 1976). This expresses the interaction in terms of the bulk dielectric properties of the two colloidal particles. The power of the Lifshitz formalism lies in its ability to encompass all many-body interactions to deal properly with the effects of intermediate substances (here the microscopic method is quite vague) and to include contributions from all resonant electronic and molecular frequencies. Its disadvantage lies in the dramatic increase in the complexity of the calculations, although such computations are readily performed with the aid of a digital computer. 

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