Group Theory Applied To Chemistry (theoretical Chemistry And Computational Modelling)
by Arnout Jozef Ceulemans /
2013 / English / PDF
3.1 MB Download
Chemists are used to the operational definition of symmetry,
which crystallographers introduced long before the advent of
quantum mechanics. The ball-and-stick models of molecules
naturally exhibit the symmetrical properties of macroscopic
objects. However, the practitioner of quantum chemistry and
molecular modeling is not concerned with balls and sticks, but
with subatomic particles: nuclei and electrons. This textbook
introduces the subtle metaphors which relate our macroscopic
understanding of symmetry to the molecular world. It gradually
explains how bodily rotations and reflections, which leave all
inter-particle distances unaltered, affect the study of molecular
phenomena that depend only on these internal distances. It helps
readers to acquire the skills to make use of the mathematical
tools of group theory for whatever chemical problems they are
confronted with in the course of their own research.
Chemists are used to the operational definition of symmetry,
which crystallographers introduced long before the advent of
quantum mechanics. The ball-and-stick models of molecules
naturally exhibit the symmetrical properties of macroscopic
objects. However, the practitioner of quantum chemistry and
molecular modeling is not concerned with balls and sticks, but
with subatomic particles: nuclei and electrons. This textbook
introduces the subtle metaphors which relate our macroscopic
understanding of symmetry to the molecular world. It gradually
explains how bodily rotations and reflections, which leave all
inter-particle distances unaltered, affect the study of molecular
phenomena that depend only on these internal distances. It helps
readers to acquire the skills to make use of the mathematical
tools of group theory for whatever chemical problems they are
confronted with in the course of their own research.