The atomic movement induced on melting has to overcome a viscous drag resistance. It is suggested that the latent heat of fusion supplies the required energy for this physical process. The viscosity model introduced here allows computation of the latent heat from viscosity, molar volume, melting temperature, and atomic mass and diameter. The correlation between these parameters and the latent heat was calculated for monoatomic melts formed from body and face centered cubic structure. The correlation coefficients are 0.97 and 0.95 respectively. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.