Book Description

This book provides non-specialists with a basic understanding ofthe underlying concepts of quantum chemistry. It is both a text for second or third-year undergraduates and a reference for researchers who need a quick introduction or refresher. All chemists and many biochemists, materials scientists, engineers, and physicists routinely user spectroscopic measurements and electronic structure computations in their work. The emphasis of Quantum Chemistry on explaining ideas rather than enumerating facts or presenting procedural details makes this an excellent foundation text/reference. The keystone is laid in the first two chapters which deal with molecular symmetry and the postulates of quantum mechanics, respectively. Symmetry is woven through the narrative of the next three chapters dealing with simple models of translational, rotational, and vibrational motion that underlie molecular spectroscopy and statistical thermodynamics. The next two chapters deal with the electronic structure of the hydrogen atom and hydrogen molecule ion, respectively. Having been armed with a basic knowledge of these prototypical systems, the reader is ready to learn, in the next chapter, the fundamental ideas used to deal with the complexities of many-electron atoms and molecules. These somewhat abstract ideas are illustrated with the venerable Huckel model of planar hydrocarbons in the penultimate chapter. The book concludes with an explanation of the bare minimum of technical choices that must be made to do meaningful electronic structure computations using quantum chemistry software packages.