  The Lindemann criterion is reformulated in terms of the average shear modulus
$G_c$ of the melting crystal, indicating a critical melting shear strain which
is necessary to form the many different inherent states of the liquid. In glass
formers with covalent bonds, one has to distinguish between soft and hard
degrees of freedom to reach agreement. The temperature dependence of the
picosecond mean square displacements of liquid and crystal shows that there are
two separate contributions to the divergence of the viscosity with decreasing
temperature: the anharmonic increase of the shear modulus and a diverging
correlation length .
