Philosophical Perspectives in Quantum Chemistry
Philosophical Perspectives in Quantum Chemistry

Author: Olimpia Lombardi

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-05-16

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 3030983730

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This book explores the philosophy and the foundations of quantum chemistry. It features chapters written by experts in the field. The contributions analyze quantum chemistry as a discipline, in particular, its relation with both chemistry and physics from the viewpoint of realism and reduction. Coverage includes such topics as quantum chemistry as an “in-between” discipline, molecular structure and quantum mechanics, quantum chemical models, and atoms and molecules in quantum chemistry. The interest of this book is twofold. First, the contributions aim to update and refresh the discussions regarding the foundations of quantum chemistry. Second, they seek to develop new philosophical perspectives that this discipline can suggest to philosophers of science. From its origins, quantum chemistry filled a problematic position in the disciplinary space. On the one hand, it is a branch of theoretical chemistry. On the other hand, it appeals essentially to theoretical tools coming from physics. This peculiar position triggered conceptual questions about its own identity. Inside this book, readers will find updated discussions on the foundations and the philosophy of this complex discipline.

Quantum Worlds
Quantum Worlds

Author: Olimpia Lombardi

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-04-11

Total Pages: 411

ISBN-13: 1108473474

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Offers a comprehensive and up-to-date volume on the conceptual and philosophical problems related to the interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Neither Physics nor Chemistry
Neither Physics nor Chemistry

Author: Kostas Gavroglu

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2011-10-07

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 0262016184

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The evolution of a discipline at the intersection of physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Quantum chemistry—a discipline that is not quite physics, not quite chemistry, and not quite applied mathematics—emerged as a field of study in the 1920s. It was referred to by such terms as mathematical chemistry, subatomic theoretical chemistry, molecular quantum mechanics, and chemical physics until the community agreed on the designation of quantum chemistry. In Neither Physics Nor Chemistry, Kostas Gavroglu and Ana Simões examine the evolution of quantum chemistry into an autonomous discipline, tracing its development from the publication of early papers in the 1920s to the dramatic changes brought about by the use of computers in the 1970s. The authors focus on the culture that emerged from the creative synthesis of the various traditions of chemistry, physics, and mathematics. They examine the concepts, practices, languages, and institutions of this new culture as well as the people who established it, from such pioneers as Walter Heitler and Fritz London, Linus Pauling, and Robert Sanderson Mulliken, to later figures including Charles Alfred Coulson, Raymond Daudel, and Per-Olov Löwdin. Throughout, the authors emphasize six themes: epistemic aspects and the dilemmas caused by multiple approaches; social issues, including academic politics, the impact of textbooks, and the forging of alliances; the contingencies that arose at every stage of the developments in quantum chemistry; the changes in the field when computers were available to perform the extraordinarily cumbersome calculations required; issues in the philosophy of science; and different styles of reasoning.

Conceptual Perspectives in Quantum Chemistry
Conceptual Perspectives in Quantum Chemistry

Author: Jean-Louis Calais

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 562

ISBN-13: 9401155720

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The rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full Ecclesiastes What is quantum chemistry? The straightforward answer is that it is what quan tum chemists do. But it must be admitted, that in contrast to physicists and chemists, "quantum chemists" seem to be a rather ill-defined category of scientists. Quantum chemists are more or less physicists (basically theoreticians), more or less chemists, and by large, computationists. But first and foremost, we, quantum chemists; are conscious beings. We may safely guess that quantum chemistry was one of the first areas in the natural sciences to lie on the boundaries of many disciplines. We may certainly claim that quantum chemists were the first to use computers for really large scale calculations. The scope of the problems which quantum chemistry wishes to answer and which, by its unique nature, only quantum chemistry can answer is growing daily. Retrospectively we may guess that many of those problems meet a daily need, or are say, technical in some sense. The rest are fundamental or conceptual. The daily life of most quantum chemists is usually filled with grasping the more or less technical problems. But it is at least as important to devote some time to the other kind of problems whose solution will open up new perspectives for both quantum chemistry itself and for the natural sciences in general.

Philosophy of Chemistry
Philosophy of Chemistry

Author: Eric Scerri

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-11-11

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9401793646

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This volume follows the successful book, which has helped to introduce and spread the Philosophy of Chemistry to a wider audience of philosophers, historians, science educators as well as chemists, physicists and biologists. The introduction summarizes the way in which the field has developed in the ten years since the previous volume was conceived and introduces several new authors who did not contribute to the first edition. The editors are well placed to assemble this book, as they are the editor in chief and deputy editors of the leading academic journal in the field, Foundations of Chemistry. The philosophy of chemistry remains a somewhat neglected field, unlike the philosophy of physics and the philosophy of biology. Why there has been little philosophical attention to the central discipline of chemistry among the three natural sciences is a theme that is explored by several of the contributors. This volume will do a great deal to redress this imbalance. Among the themes covered is the question of reduction of chemistry to physics, the reduction of biology to chemistry, whether true chemical laws exist and causality in chemistry. In addition more general questions of the nature of organic chemistry, biochemistry and chemical synthesis are examined by specialist in these areas.

Chemistry, Quantum Mechanics and Reductionism
Chemistry, Quantum Mechanics and Reductionism

Author: H. Primas

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 3662113147

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The purpose of this book is to provide a deeper insight into the modern theories of molecular matter. It incorporates the most important developments which have taken place during the last decades and reflects the modern trend to abstraction. At the present state of the art we have acquired a fairly good knowledge of "how to. compute" small molecules us ing the methods of quantum chemistry. Yet, in spite of many statements to the contrary and many superficial discussions, the theoretical basis of chemistry and biology is not safely in our hands. It is all but impossible to summarize the modern developments of the theory of matter in nontechnical language. But I hope that I can give some feeling for the problems, the intellectual excitements and the wor ries of some theoreticians. I know very well that such an enterprise is a dangerous adventure and that one says that a clever scientist should take care of his reputation by barricading himself behind the safe wall of his speciality. This volume is not meant to be a textbook; in many respects it has complementary goals. For good and bad reasons, most textbooks ignore the historical and philosophical aspects and go ahead on the basis of crude simplifications; many even lie like the devil and do not shrink from naive indoctrination. Some sections of this book can be read as commentaries on our standard texts, they are intended to stir the waters with controversy.

Quantum Mechanics
Quantum Mechanics

Author: Robert J. Russell

Publisher:

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13:

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Quantum Mechanics, a collection of fifteen essays, explores the creative interaction among quantum physics, philosophy, and theology. This fine collection presents the results of the fifth international research conference co-sponsored by the Vatican Observatory, Rome, and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Berkeley. The overarching goal of these conferences is to support the engagement of constructive theology with the natural sciences and to investigate the philosophical and theological elements in ongoing theoretical research in the natural sciences. In the first section of this collection, contributors examine scientific and historical context. Section two features essays covering a wide range of philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics. The final set of essays explores the theological implications of quantum theory. Abner Shimony, Raymond Y. Chiao, Michael Berry, Ernan McMullin, William R. Stoeger, S.J., James T. Cushing, Jeremy Butterfield, Michael Redhead, Chris Clarke, John Polkinghorne, Michael Heller, Philip Clayton, Thomas F. Tracy, George F.R. Ellis, and Robert John Russell all contributed essays to this volume.

Quantum Mechanics - a Philosophical Perspective
Quantum Mechanics - a Philosophical Perspective

Author: Don Hainesworth

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2019-09-17

Total Pages: 715

ISBN-13: 1728325587

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This book gives a comprehensive treatment on the historical discoveries and scientific developments concerning the Universe at the atomic and subatomic levels. Discussions begin with classical discoveries on the behavior of the atom to Quantum Mechanics and ends with exciting modern discoveries that are leading us to unlocking the hidden mysteries of reality. “Quantum mechanics describes the behavior of very small objects – the size of atoms or smaller – and it provides the only understanding of the world of the very small. In the world of quantum mechanics, the laws of physics that are familiar from the everyday world no longer work. Instead, events are governed by probabilities. During the time of Newton, it was thought that the Universe ran like clockwork, wound up and set in motion by the Creator, down some utterly predictable path. Newton’s classical mechanics provided plenty of support for this deterministic view of the Universe, a picture that left little place for human free will or chance. Could it really be that we are all puppets following our own preset tracks through life, with no real choice at all? Most scientists were content to let the philosophers debate that question. But it returned, with full force, at the heart of the new physics of the twentieth century.” In Search Of Schrodinger’s Cat – John Gribbin In addition, the various interpretations of quantum phenomena has led scientists and philosophers to a real possibility of finding a connection between matter and consciousness. This book contains no advanced scientific concepts, and no complicated formulas are written down for analysis. However, it does present some simple mathematical related examples in the final chapter. This is presented in order to reinforce the important ideas in QM and maintain a clear understanding of its fundamentals. It is not assumed that the reader has an understanding of Quantum Physics. Therefore the text provides the reader with enough historical and scientific information to insure his or her confidence in understanding the properties and behavior of quantum particle/wave elements.

The Philosophy of Chemistry
The Philosophy of Chemistry

Author: Jean-Pierre Llored

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2014-09-26

Total Pages: 780

ISBN-13: 1443867942

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This volume connects chemistry and philosophy in order to face questions raised by chemistry in our present world. The idea is first to develop a kind of philosophy of chemistry which is deeply rooted in the exploration of chemical activities. We thus work in close contact with chemists (technicians, engineers, researchers, and teachers). Following this line of reasoning, the first part of the book encourages current chemists to describe their workaday practices while insisting on the importance of attending to methodological, metrological, philosophical, and epistemological questions related to their activities. It deals with sustainable chemistry, chemical metrology, nanochemistry, and biochemistry, among other crucial topics. In doing so, those chemists invite historians and philosophers to provide ideas for future developments. In a nutshell, this part is a call for forthcoming collaborations focused on instruments and methods, that is on ways of doing chemistry. The second part of the book illustrates the multifarious ways to study chemistry and even proposes new approaches to doing so. Each approach is interesting and incomplete but the emergent whole is richer than any of its components. Analytical work needs socio-historical expertise as well as many other approaches in order to keep on investigating chemistry to greater and greater depth. This heterogeneity provides a wide set of methodological perspectives not only about current chemical practices but also about the ways to explore them philosophically. Each approach is a resource to study chemistry and to reflect upon what doing philosophy of science can mean. In the last part of the volume, philosophers and chemists propose new concepts or reshape older ones in order to think about chemistry. The act of conceptualization itself is queried as well as the relationships between concepts and chemical activities. Prefaced by Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Roald Hoffmann, and by the President of the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry, Rom Harré, this volume is a plea for the emergence of a collective cleverness and aims to foster inventiveness.

Collected Papers on Philosophy of Chemistry
Collected Papers on Philosophy of Chemistry

Author: Eric R. Scerri

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1848161379

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This book represents a collection of papers from one of the founders of the new Philosophy of Chemistry. It is only the second single-author collection of papers on the Philosophy of Chemistry.The author is the editor-in-chief of Foundations of Chemistry, the leading journal in the field. He has recently gained worldwide success with his book on the periodic table of the elements titled The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance. This volume provides an in-depth examination of his more philosophical and historical work in this area and further afield.