I know that gases with stronger intermolecular forces should have a larger value of the van der Waals constant $a$. So I looked up a table on van der Waals constants and tried to reason about the relative values of that constant. Though I was able to explain most of the values, there was one thing I found absurd. Here:
$$ \begin{array}{cc} \hline \text{Substance} & a~(\pu{atm {dm}^6 mol^{-2}}) \\ \hline \text{Oxygen} & 1.364 \\ \text{Xenon} & 4.137 \\ \text{Ammonia} & 4.225 \\ \text{Ethane} & 5.507 \\ \hline \end{array} $$
My intution says that dioxygen, which has a slightly higher molar mass (32 vs. 30) than ethane, but significantly less molecular size or volume, should have a only slightly lower value of $a$ than that of ethane, but here we find a significant difference! Another example is xenon; its molar mass (131) is much larger than ethane (30), but its value of $a$ is smaller. Does it have to do with the dominance of molecular size over mass? Or atomicity or atomic dipoles? I suspect that it's probably the large and branched structure of ethane that's causing this.
Why does the molecular size/volume seem to play such a dominating role in the value of the constant $a$? I thought it was primarily influenced by molecular mass.