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Atoms and bonds in molecules and chemical explanations

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Abstract

The concepts of atoms and bonds in molecules which appeared in chemistry during the nineteenth century are unavoidable to explain the structure and the reactivity of the matter at a chemical level of understanding. Although they can be criticized from a strict reductionist point of view, because neither atoms nor bonds are observable in the sense of quantum mechanics, the topological and statistical interpretative approaches of quantum chemistry (quantum theory of atoms in molecules, electron localization function and maximum probability domain) provide consistent definitions which accommodate chemistry and quantum mechanics.

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Notes

  1. Quantum mechanics is undeniably the intellectual scandal of the century! What do you mean by scandal? I mean Science has renounced intelligibility, It has really renounced! That’s something which asserts itself and which is not understandable.

  2. Condon’s calculation uses the \(\hbox{H}_{2}^{+}\) analytical result of Burrau (1927) to build the H2 approximate wavefunction. The MO method has been independently developed by Hund (1926, 1928, 1932), Mulliken (1928a, b), Lennard-Jones (1929).

  3. Lewis’s sixth postulate which seems in contradiction with quantum mechanics can be considered as an anticipation of Pauli’s exclusion principle (Pauli 1925).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dip. di Chimica, Universitá di Napoli Federico II, Via Cintia, 80126, Naples, Italy

    Mauro Causá

  2. Laboratoire de Chimie Théorique (UMR-CNRS 7616), Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 4 place Jussieu, 75252, Paris, France

    Andreas Savin & Bernard Silvi

Authors
  1. Mauro Causá
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  2. Andreas Savin
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  3. Bernard Silvi
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Correspondence to Bernard Silvi.

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Dedicated to the memory of Professor Richard F. W. Bader.

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Causá, M., Savin, A. & Silvi, B. Atoms and bonds in molecules and chemical explanations. Found Chem 16, 3–26 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-013-9192-2

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