The inversion temperature in thermodynamics and cryogenics is the critical temperature below which a non-ideal gas (all gases in reality) that is expanding at constant enthalpy will experience a temperature decrease, and above which will experience a temperature increase. This temperature change is known as the Joule–Thomson effect, and is exploited in the liquefaction of gases. Inversion temperature depends on the nature of the gas. For a van der Waals gas we can calculate the enthalpy using statistical mechanics as ,