Scerri, Eric (2024) The Born-Oppenheimer approximation and its role in the reduction of chemistry. [Preprint]

Text 182. Scerri. The BOA and reduction of chemistry copy.pdf Download (617kB)

Abstract

The article concerns the long-standing claims in the philosophy of chemistry to the effect that molecular structure does not reduce to quantum mechanics. Many authors have argued that the use of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation implies that molecular structure must be introduced 'by hand' rather than its being derived. I dispute these claims in view of recent work in theoretical chemistry and the fact that the structure of an admittedly simple molecule, D3+, has now been derived in a completely ab initio fashion.

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Scerri, Eric scerri@chem.ucla.edu 0000-0001-9775-5829
Keywords:	Born-Oppenheimer approximation, reduction, molecular structure, quantum mechanics.
Subjects:	٠ Out of Print ٠
Depositing User:	Eric Scerri
Date Deposited:	20 Dec 2024 14:40
Last Modified:	20 Dec 2024 14:40
Item ID:	24434
Subjects:	٠ Out of Print ٠
Date:	2024
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/24434

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item