virial
nounEtymology From Latin vīs (vīs has a hidden "r" that shows in forms such as the genitive plural, vīrium).
1
Engineering, Mechanical engineering, Mechanics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences One-half of the product of the stress of attraction or repulsion with the distance between two particles.
- The quantity 1/2 Rr, or half the product of the attraction into the distance across which the attraction is exerted, is defined by Clausis [Prof. Clausis of Bonn] as the virial of the attraction. (In the case of pressure or repulsion, the virial is negative.)1875, James Clerk Maxwell, “On the Dynamical Evidence of the Molecular Constitution of Bodies”, in Nature, 11 (1875), 357-359, 374-377:
- Derived terms
- virial coefficient, virial theorem, virialize, virialization