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Critical exponent γ ⪰ 1.1 characterizes the behavior of the mechanical compressibility of a real fluid when the temperature approaches the critical one. It results in zero Gaussian curvature of the local shape of the critical point on the thermodynamic equation of state surface, which imposes a new constraint upon the construction of the potential equation of state of the real fluid from the empirical data. All known empirical equations of the state suffer from a weakness that the Gaussian curvature of the critical point is negative definite instead of zero.

Differential geometry is a powerful tool to analyze the vapor–liquid critical point on the surface of the thermodynamic equation of state. The existence of usual condition of the critical point (∂p/∂V)T=0 requires the isothermal process, but the universality of the critical point is its independence of whatever process is taken, and so we can assume (∂p/∂T)V=0. The distinction between the critical point and other points on the surface leads us to further assume that the critical point is geometrically represented by zero Gaussian curvature. A slight extension of the van der Waals equation of state is to letting the two parameters a and b in it vary with temperature, which then satisfies both assumptions and reproduces its usual form when the temperature is approximately the critical one.