Van der Waals force
For macroscopic bodies with known volumes and numbers of atoms or molecules per unit volume, the total Van der Waals force is often computed based on the "microscopic theory" as the sum over all interacting pairs. It is necessary to integrate over the total volume of the object, which makes the calculation dependent on the objects' shapes. For example, the Van der Waals' interaction energy between spherical bodies of radii R1 and R2 and with smooth surfaces was approximated in 1937 by Hamaker (using London's famous 1937 equation for the dispersion interaction energy between atoms/molecules as the starting point) by: