Correlations in the Structure and Dynamics of Ionic Liquids

A very great deal of the experimental work on room-temperature ionic liquids was done after high-performance computing became readily available for quantum-chemical or molecular-dynamic calculations. I explore the use of modern computational methods to guide or aid laboratory work, and the importance of 'old-fashioned' theory, from before the age of fast computers. Debye and Huckel published the first really important theoretical work on correlations between charged particles, and the Nernst-Einstein formula is still used to understand electrical conductivities. I assess the usefulness of all these theoretical methods and ideas, and discuss the particular difficulties presented by ionic liquids.