A note on the history of experimental and theoretical research into molecular attractive forces between solids

From the Editorial Board. In a brief followup to the talk by E I Kats on “Van der Waals, Casimir, and Lifshitz forces in soft matter” (see pp. 892 – 896 of this issue) at the E M Lifshitz centennial session of the Physical Sciences Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an interesting and instructive story was told by Nina Petrovna Danilova (Department of Low Temperature Physics and Superconductivity, Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University) of how E M Lifshitz was enlisted to explain I I Abrikosova's and B V Derjaguin's experimental results. The Editorial Board of Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk (UFN) [Physics–Uspekhi] journal found the story appropriate to be published in the “Letters to the Editor” section of UFN in a jubilee selection of works marking the centennial of E M Lifshitz’ birth.