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Historical and philosophical perspectives on quantum chemistry

Kostas Gavroglu and Ana Simões: Neither physics nor chemistry: A history of quantum chemistry. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2012, xiv+351pp, $40.00, £27.95 HB

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Notes

  1. See, for example, Scerri (2008, Section A), Nye (1992), Arabatzis (2006, Chapter 7).

  2. Some scholars do attempt to extend these critiques almost indefinitely into the past. Although boundary transgressions have clearly always been part and parcel of the disciplinary system, one can still meaningfully distinguish between these earlier transgressions and threats to the disciplinary system as a whole.

  3. Gavroglu and Simões (3, 257) say that an analytic solution has also been given for the Helium atom. But as I understand the matter, this is a many-body problem which doesn’t have an analytic solution. The authors seem to confirm this when they say “Slater … tried to carry out more accurate calculations than those of Heisenberg for the helium atom … [and later] Hylleraas … developed a more accurate method to treat the helium atom” (88).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RH, UK

    Hasok Chang

  2. Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmann Str. 22, 14195, Berlin, Germany

    Jeremiah James

  3. Department of Philosophy, University of Stockholm, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden

    Paul Needham

  4. Department of Philosophy and History of Science, University of Athens, University Campus, Ano Ilisia, 157 71, Athens, Greece

    Kostas Gavroglu

  5. Center for the History of Science of the University of Lisbon (CHCUL), Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Campo Grande, C4, Piso 3, 1749-016, Lisbon, Portugal

    Ana Simões

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  1. Hasok Chang
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  2. Jeremiah James
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  4. Kostas Gavroglu
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  5. Ana Simões
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Correspondence to Hasok Chang.

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Chang, H., James, J., Needham, P. et al. Historical and philosophical perspectives on quantum chemistry. Metascience 22, 523–544 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11016-013-9782-6

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