The Protestant controversy on the Eucharist (1524) revealed his disagreement with Luther on that critical point.
By actual observations it has been shown that ether, alcohol, many esters of the normal alcohols and fatty acids, benzene, and its halogen substitution products, have critical constants agreeing with this originally empirical law, due to Sydney Young and Thomas; acetic acid behaves abnormally, pointing to associated molecules at the critical point.
At the critical point liquid and vapour become identical, and, consequently, as was pointed out by Frankenheim in 1841, the surface tension is zero at the critical temperature.
Villari in 1868 that the magnetic susceptibility of an iron wire was increased by stretching when the magnetization was below a certain value, but diminished when that value was exceeded; this phenomenon has been termed by Lord Kelvin, who discovered it independently, the " Villari reversal," the value of the magnetization for which stretching by a given load produces no effect being known as the " Villari critical point " for that load.
The Villari critical point for aegiven sample of iron is reached with a smaller magnetizing force when the stretching load is great than when it is small; the reversal also occurs with smaller loads and with weaker fields when the iron is soft than when it is hard.