Quantum chemistry discourse

In this paper we discuss a number of issues which manifest the theoretical particularity of quantum chemistry and which are usually not discussed in an explicit manner either in the historical or in the philosophical studies related to quantum chemistry. We shall focus on five issues the re-thinking of the problem of reductionism, the discourse of quantum chemistry as a confluence of the traditions of physics, chemistry, and mathematics, the role of textbooks in consolidating this discourse, the ontological status of resonance, and the more general problem of the status of the chemical bond. Finally, we shall briefly discuss the impact of large scale computing. 

The Role of Textbooks in Building a Discourse for Quantum Chemistry... 

Perhaps it may be argued that the involvement in such discussions of almost all those who did pioneering work in quantum chemistry (and, certainly, of everyone whose work we analyze in this book)—either in their published papers or in their correspondence—had to do with legitimizing the epistemological status of various concepts in order to be able to articulate the characteristic discourse of quantum chemistry. Of course, the process of legitimization is not only related to the clarification of the content of... 

This confusion does not avoid that, for the essential problems of structural chemistry, it remains relatively simple for us to avoid the dynamic problems (the models for all sciences since the eighteenth century) and base the entire structure of chemical systems essentially in the steady state solutions of the Schrodinger equation. This is a good enough approximation since the spacing between electronic levels is sufficiently high for, at the temperatures common at the Earth s surface, we only have the fundamental electronic levels filled (Bent, 1965). In fact, apart from the explanatory discourse between levels 1 and 2 (the structural or quan-tum/electronic level and the reactional or statistical/molecular level), particularly for the description of transition states, photochemical reactions, the ground quantum level will be sufficient for the more intricate thematic descriptions. 

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