Water, generally historical perspectives

An overview of the radiation chemistry of water is given from the start of its systematic study some 60 years ago to the present day. Attention is confined to the effects of low linear energy transfer (LET) radiation at ambient temperature and pressure because these are the conditions most commonly used in the application of water radiolysis as a tool in general chemistry. After a brief historical perspective, a scheme for the radiation chemistry of water is presented together with a review of recent results of stochastic and deterministic modelling of the spur reactions that occur between 10 and 10 sec. This is followed by... 

Because the van der Waals equation of state preceeded The General Theory of Molecular Forces, the interactions between molecules and/or atoms became known collectively as van der Waals forces. From a historical perspective, van der Waals interactions encompass the entire spectrum of weak interactions depicted in Figure 1, from the dispersion forces holding a He nanodroplet together to the hydrogen bonds in a cluster of water molecules. Although many researchers today associate van der Waals forces only with weak dispersion interactions, this review adopts the historical definition of van der Waals interactions and uses the term to collectively refer to all weak chemical interactions between uncharged molecules (and/or atoms). 

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