The Maxwell Effect in Liquids

Abstract

CLERK MAXWELL many years ago surmised that viscous liquids in a state of flow should exhibit birefringence, and devised methods of observing the phenomenon. Vorländer and Walter (Zeits. Phys. Chem., 118, 1; 1925) have recently investigated no fewer than 172 liquids of known chemical composition by Maxwell's method, and their work has demonstrated conclusively that a great many pure liquids which cannot by any stretch of language be classed as colloids, exhibit birefringence when subjected to viscous flow. The Maxwell effect, as it may be called is thus a characteristic property of pure liquids just as much as the power of exhibiting birefringence in strong electrostatic or magnetic fields. We wish briefly in this note to indicate a molecular theory of the Maxwell effect we have worked out which has proved itself very successful in explaining the observed phenomena.