Intermolecular Forces

[Claire Guo 1B]

Which force is stronger, Van der Waals forces or Dispersion Forces?

[Schuyler_Howell_4D]

I also have a follow-up question to this... In class, we talked about how those forces would be interchangeable with dipole-induced dipole interactions. Does this mean they are the same or for sake of simplicity we treat them the same way?

[Sona Hakobyan 3J]

I thought these are both names, in addition to some others, for the same forces--and therefore the same strength. I'm not 100 percent sure. Anyone know for sure?

[Matthew Tran 1H]

In lecture, Dr. Lavelle said that we could use the following terms interchangeably: London forces, dispersion forces, van der Waals forces, and induced dipole-induced dipole (NOT dipole-induced dipole; this interaction is between a molecule with permanent dipole that induces a dipole in the nonpolar molecule it is interacting with). I believe they are all the same in the context of this class; however, one confusing thing I noticed in the textbook was that they seemed to classify all IMFs as van der Waals interactions. I personally prefer to use the term London dispersion forces.

[anthony_trieu2L]

Yes, Van der Waals forces and London dispersion forces are used interchangeably and are therefore the same strength. They are the weakest intermolecular forces between molecules.