The origin of strain energy in cyclic hydrocarbon molecules

3 The origin of strain energy in cyclic hydrocarbon molecules 

8 kJ/mol. In terms of the charge transfer within the group and its energy, it resembles more closely the ethylene fragment (where q C) = + 0.080 e) than it does the standard methylene group. 

While the excellence of the agreement of the relative energies of the methylene group in the cyclic molecules with the measured strain energies may be to some extent due to the fortuitous cancellation of errors in the contributions not specifically considered, namely the correlation energy, the zero-point energy, and A AHf) between 0 and 298 K, the nature of the results leaves no doubt as to the correctness of the interpretation that has been given, that the atoms of theory recover the experimentally measured properties of atoms in molecules. 

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