The Emergence of a Subdiscipline: Historiographical Considerations
The Emergence of a Subdiscipline: Historiographical Considerations
Despite its arduous journey, quantum chemistry ended on a positive note: from the notion that quantum mechanics could not provide analytical solutions to nearly every problem of chemistry, to the advent of computers and their unlimited potential to generate numerical solutions of arbitrary exactness. However, computers have also raised concerns that quantum chemists progressively engaged in less and less chemistry. Many attempted to achieve a consensus about the degree of relative autonomy of quantum chemistry with respect to both physics and chemistry and, thus, about the extent of its nonreducibility to physics. This chapter discusses the status of theory in chemistry and the theoretical particularity of chemistry in relation to quantum chemistry.
Keywords: quantum chemistry, computers, chemistry, quantum mechanics, physics
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