  We show that the position of the de Gennes minimum in scattering spectra,
where the dynamics of liquids shows down, is given by a hard-sphere expression
for a range of mono-atomic liquids that crystallize in a close packed
structure. This expression relates the position of the minimum to the number
density of the liquid, without any adjustable or unknown parameters. We argue
that this implies that a liquid can be viewed as a close packed structure of
the cages that represent the confinement of atoms by their neighbors. We
further show that some metals deviate from this expression, namely those metals
that crystallize in a structure that is not close packed. Our expression should
prove very useful in identifying what liquids to study in inelastic scattering
experiments given that deviations from normal fluid behavior can already be
predicted based on the peak position of the static structure factor.
