In physical chemistry, the van der Waals force (or van der Waals interaction), named after Dutch scientist Johannes Diderik van der Waals, is the sum of the attractive or repulsive forces between molecules (or between parts of the same molecule) other than those due to covalent bonds, the hydrogen bonds, or the electrostatic interaction of ions with one another or with neutral molecules The term includes:

• force between two permanent dipoles (Keesom force)
• force between a permanent dipole and a corresponding induced dipole (Debye force)
• force between two instantaneously induced dipoles (London dispersion force)