sci.physics.electromag

I was hoping I had more chem textbooks than those three already
mentioned and quoted. And I have a closet
of books that were college library discards and to my good luck there
was Chem One by Waser, Trueblood, Knobler
2nd ed. 1980. This textbook looks a cut above the other three as it
looks like a text for freshman chem majors
because there is alot more math.

--- quoting Waser, Trueblood, Knobler, Chem One, page 368 ---
The most widespread of the current theories of molecular structure are
the valence bond and the molecular
orbital theoreis. An essential feature of both is that chemical
bonding arises as a direct consequence of the
overlap of orbitals on nearby atoms.
--- end quoting ---

So unlike the previous three textbooks quoted this textbook defines
"chemical bond" as quantum
mechanical, using the Schrodinger wave equation. There is ample
reference to L. Pauling and his
book "The Nature of the Chemical Bond".

Whether this definition of chemical bond as that of "overlap of
orbitals" sheds new light on the
ionic, covalent and metallic bond, different from the definition given
by other chemistry textbook
writers remains to be seen for me, as I have not read the Waser,
Trueblood, Knobler discussion
on ionic, covalent and metallic bond.

But being the mathematician that I am, I can find already a
shortcoming or misgiving about such a
definition. Not because the Schrodinger Equation applications are
impossible beyond a few atoms
of hydrogen and lithium for precision, but because of a conceptual
concern. That since every electron
has electric potential out to infinity, one can say that every atom in
the Cosmos is bonded to every
other atom due to the fact that every electron overlaps every other
electron via electric potential. Maybe
a adjustment of the definition would use 90% of the probability
density function.

So I see that as a shortcoming of the definition above. I do not know
whether the above definition of
"chemical bond" is perhaps the best that chemistry has at this moment
in history. Perhaps it is the
best we have since it is based on Quantum Mechanics.

Perhaps a better definition of Chemical Bond would rely only on "break
apart energy" That if two atoms
require positive energy to move them distance apart then they are
bonded. So that we compute energy
required to move atoms a specific distance. And thus we have no need
for classification such as
ionic, covalent, metallic. If a substance requires positive energy to
move its atoms a distance apart then
they are bonded.

I have to read more of the above textbook.

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies