The Nuclear Liquid-Gas Phase Transition: Present Status and Future Perspectives

More than two decades ago, the van der Waals behavior of the nucleon - nucleon force inspired the idea of a liquid-gas phase transition in nuclear matter. Heavy-ion reactions at relativistic energies offer the unique possibility for studying this phase transition in a finite, hadronic system. A general overview of this subject is given emphasizing the most recent results on nuclear calorimetry.