Probabilistic derivation of van der Waals' equation

A probabilistic derivation of van der Waals' equation is given where the non-ideal contributions to the entropy coincide with the log-likelihood ratios, at their maxima, of the binomial distribution and the upper or lower bounds on the hypergeometric and Pólya distributions. The hypergeometric distribution accounts for the repulsive interactions of a hard sphere gas while the Pólya distribution accounts for the attractive interactions.1. Work supported in part by contributions from the Ministry of Public Education (M.P.I.) and the National Science Council (C.N.R.).