  It is shown that experimentally obtained isotherms of adsorption on solid
substrates may be completely reconciled with Lifshitz theory when thermal
fluctuations are taken into account. This is achieved within the framework of a
solid-on-solid model which is solved numerically. Analysis of the fluctuation
contributions observed for hydrogen adsorption onto gold substrates allows to
determine the surface tension of the free hydrogen film as a function of film
thickness. It is found to decrease sharply for film thicknesses below seven
atomic layers.
