Universal behavior of shear viscosity near the freezing point

The dynamics of liquids above the freezing point is studied. It is demonstrated that the available experimental data on shear viscosity of simple liquids can be described in the framework of the so-called weak crystallization theory. The theory predicts that, in the main approximation, shear viscosity is proportional to the (T/T _*−1)^−3/2, where T _* is the temperature close to the freezing temperature. This prediction is in good agreement with experimental data for many substances.