Reply to Bair: Crossover to Arrhenius behavior at high viscosities in squalane

Abstract

As noted in our paper (1), values of the Newtonian viscosity, ηN, of squalane from Deegan et al. (2) are well fit by the Vogel–Fulcher–Tammann (VFT) equation over the measured range of temperature, T. This is entirely consistent with the fairly straight line shown for their data in the Stickel function plot by Bair (3). As shown in figure 1 of ref. 1, our calculated values of ηN are consistent with Deegan et al.’s data (2). Thus, any derived quantity such as the Stickel function will be consistent within statistical uncertainties. The line attributed to our data by Bair (3) is not consistent with our plotted data. It appears to reflect a misunderstanding of the crossover we describe, which we are happy to address below.