Quantum Organic Chemistry

Chapter 9 of Nye s book is devoted to Quantum chemistry and chemical physics, 1920-1950 , with sections on the application of quantum mechanics to molecules in the 1920s, chemists and quantum mechanics in the 1920s and 1930s, and quantum chemistry and chemical physics in the 1930s and 1940s. 

It seems useful to list biographical material that is available for some of the pioneers in the application of quantum mechanics to chemistry, particularly organic chemistry, with a few comments. R. S. Mulliken (1896-1986) is best known for his share in the creation of molecular orbital theory. He was associated with the University of Chicago for most of his career,350,351 and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1966. Mulliken traced the path to molecular orbital theory in a lecture352 given in 1970. He wrote an autobiography that was published posthumously.353 

Lennard-Jones (1894-1954) is also remembered for his contribution to the development of molecular orbital theory.354 His Cambridge pupil, C. A. Coulson (1910-1974), carried out much pioneering work in the application of molecular orbital theory to chemistry, particularly organic chemistry.355 Much of this work was before the advent of sophisticated calculations using computers, but Coulson helped 

The contributions of Erich Hiickel to the development of molecular orbital theory have already been mentioned in the subsection on Germany (Section 5.4.1) the development of semi-empirical quantum mechanical treatments in organic chemistry by M. J. S. Dewar has been discussed in Section 5.5. In the early development of the application of quantum mechanics to chemistry, Linus Pauling (1901-1994)359 was pre-eminent. He was associated with CalTech for most of his career. His work before World War II generated two influential books the Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (with E. Bright Wilson, 1935)360 and The Nature of the Chemical Bond (1939).361 He favoured the valence-bond treatment and the theory of resonance. 

McWeeny has written a tribute to the valence-bond theory pioneers of 1927-1935.362 Shavitt has outlined the history and evolution of Gaussian basis sets as employed in ah initio molecular orbital calculations.363 Hargittai has interviewed Roald Hoffmann (b. 1937)364 of Cornell University and Kenichi Fukui (1918-1998)365 of Kyoto University, who were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1981. Fukui developed the concept of frontier orbitals and recognized the importance of orbital symmetry in chemical reactions, but his work was highly mathematical and its importance was not appreciated until Robert Woodward (1917-1979) and Hoffmann produced their rules for the conservation of orbital symmetry from 1965 onwards.366 

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Greenwood, H. H., 1972. Computing Methods in Quantum Organic Chemistry. Wiley Interscience, New York. 

K. Higasi, H. Buba, A. Rembaum, Quantum Organic Chemistry John Wiley Sons, New York (1965). 

For the method for calculating these and similar results given in this chapter, see Higasi, K. Baba, H. Rembaum, A. Quantum Organic Chemistry Interscience NY, 1965. For values of calculated orbital energies and bond orders for many conjugated molecules, see Couison, C.A. Streitwieser Jr., A. Dictionary ofn Electron Calculations W.H. Freeman San Francisco, 1965. 

V. V. Plemenkov, Quantum Organic Chemistry, Izdatel stvo Kazanskogo Universiteta, Kazan, USSR, 1982. 

Kichisuke Nishimoto, Advances in Quantum Chemistry, Kagaku Dojin, Tokyo, 1983. Anonymous, Quantum Organic Chemistry, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1983. 

Yong Zhu, Shigang Han, and Pingchou Zhu, Quantum Organic Chemistry, Pt. 1, Xinhua Book Store, Beijing, 1983. 

Quantum Organic Chemistry Group, Division of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Rudjer Boskovic Institute, P.O.B 1016, 10001 Zagreb, Croatia and Faculty of Science and Mathematics, The University of Zagreb, Marulicev trg 19, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia... 

K. HIGASL H. BABA and A. REM BAUM, Quantum Organic Chemistry, Interscience. New York, 1965. 

Higasi, K., Baba, H., Rembaum, A. Quantum organic chemistry, p. 7. New York Interscience Publishers 1965. 

K. Higasi Quantum Organic Chemistry (Interscience Publishers, 1965)... 

McWeeny R. 1961. Quantum organic chemistry. [The Chemical Society] Annual Reports on the Progress of Chemistry S8-.137-1S3. 

Pullman, B. 1976. Introduction to symposium 111 - Quantum organic chemistry and beyond. In The new world of quantum chemistry. Proceedings of the second international congress of quantum chemistry held at New Orleans, USA, April 19-24 1976, ed. B. Pullman and R. Parr, 133-135. Dordrecht D. Reidel Publishing Company. 

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