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A note on Michael Weisberg’s: challenges to the structural conception of chemical bonding

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Abstract

Michael Weisberg’s recent 2007 paper on the chemical bond makes the claim that the chemical notion of the covalent bond is in trouble. This note casts doubts on that claim.

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Notes

  1. The original version of this note was based on the preprint available in the philsci preprint archive. Since then, thankfully, Weisberg has revised the paper and has corrected some of the most egregious mistakes in his formulas and descriptions. This note is based on the revised text. Since the original version of Weisberg’s note is still available, in some cases the points raised originally in this paper are relegated to footnotes where this is still relevant to the argument.

  2. There is ample literature discussing this fact, see for instance the summarising table and references in van Brakel (2000, p. 137) for an example.

  3. A small ‘directional’ modification of it is the Coulson–Fischer wave function which Weisberg does not discuss; this approach is discussed in McWeeny (1979, p. 130).

  4. It should be noted that a discussion of hybridisation is possible for two-atomic molecules.

  5. Some, but not all of these, were corrected in the revised version.

  6. In the original version of Weisberg’s paper, his description of the VB method of wave function construction was almost entirely erroneous. Thankfully, the most egregious errors have been corrected in the revised version.

  7. Of course, Weisberg does not consider energetic stabilisation as one of the key elements of the structural conception of the chemical bond, as discussed in the previous section.

  8. Pauling as cited in van Brakel (2000).

References

  • Heitler, W., London, F.: Wechselwirkung neutraler Atome und homöopolare Bindung nach der Quantenmechanik. Zeitschrift fur Physik 44, 455–472 (1927)

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  • Hund, F.: Zur Deutung der Molekelspektren I. Zeitschrift für Physik 40, 742 (1927)

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  • McWeeny, R.: Methods of Molecular Quantum Mechanics. Academic Press (1989)

  • McWeeny, R.: Coulson’s Valence. Oxford University Press (1979)

  • van Brakel, J.: Philosophy of Chemistry. Leuven University Press, Leuven (2000)

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  • Weisberg M.: Challenges to the Structural Conception of Chemical Bonding. Philosophy of Science Assoc. 20th Biennial Mtg (Vancouver): PSA 2006 Symposia. The version of the paper that this note was based on originally is available at http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00003297/. I have accessed an updated version from Weisberg’s home page on 22 December 2007; this is presumably the version to be published (2007)

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Correspondence to Hinne Hettema.

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Hettema, H. A note on Michael Weisberg’s: challenges to the structural conception of chemical bonding. Found Chem 10, 135–142 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-008-9045-6

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