Reverse Monte Carlo simulation of liquid water has been carried out on
the basis of partial pair correlation functions determined by Soper a
nd Phillips. The configurations obtained from this simulation were ana
lyzed in detail. The results were compared with those obtained from mo
lecular dynamics (MD) simulation in order to interpret the differences
between the experimental and the MD partial pair correlation function
sets. By evaluating the experimental data we found a more distorted g
eometry of the hydrogen bonds, and also that a significant fraction of
the nearest-neighbour molecules distributes randomly rather than tetr
ahedrally around a central water molecule.