The Purcell question: why do all viscosities stop at the same place?

Abstract

In 1977, Purcell asked why liquid viscosities all stop at the same place? Liquids are hard to understand, yet today we can answer the Purcell question in terms of fundamental physical constants fixing viscosity minima. With the Planck constant setting the minimal viscosity, water and life appear to be well attuned to the degree of quantumness of the physical world.

References in corpus (1)

• Modelling of liquid internal energy and heat capacity over a wide pressure-temperature range from first principles

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