Who (presumably a chemist) realized first the efficiency of character theory in calculations of orbitals of atoms? In which year?
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
2
asked Sep 9, 2019 at 13:54
-
2$\begingroup$ These posts on History of Science and Mathematics seems to be - to some extent - related:History of group theory character tables (as used in physics and chemistry) and How did group theory enter quantum mechanics? $\endgroup$– Martin SleziakCommented Sep 9, 2019 at 14:07
-
1$\begingroup$ There is tension between the title about chemistry (molecular orbitals) and body about spectroscopy (atomic orbitals). Carlo answers about the former, but the same Scholz paper says that applications of representation theory to atomic orbitals started earlier in Wigner (1927), von Neumann-Wigner (1928). If you insist on use of characters then Bethe (1929; in gallica) has a lot more. $\endgroup$– Francois ZieglerCommented Sep 10, 2019 at 20:16
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
Introducing groups into quantum theory, by Erhard Scholz (2006):
In quantum chemistry, representations of permutation groups made their first appearance about the same time as they did in spectroscopy. The topic was opened up by a joint publication [1] of two young physicists, Walter Heitler and Fritz London, who had come to Zürich on Rockefeller grants in 1926, respectively 1927, to work with E. Schrödinger. Group theoretic methods were first applied in two papers by W. Heitler [2,3].
[1] Heitler, W., London, F. Wechselwirkung neutraler Atome und homöpolare Bindung nach der Quanten-mechanik. Zeitschrift für Physik 44, 455–472 (1927).
[2] Heitler, W., Zur Gruppentheorie der homöopolaren chemischen Bindung. Zeitschrift für Physik 47, 835–858 (1928).
[3] Heitler, W., Zur Gruppentheorie der Wechselwirkung von Atomen. Zeitschrift für Physik 51, 805–816 (1928).
answered Sep 9, 2019 at 15:03
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
I think this realization is an immediate consequence of that of the efficiency of group theory in the quantum theory of angular momentum. The early culprits for the Gruppenpest are Weyl in his 1931 book "Gruppentheorie und quantenmechanik" and B. van der Waerden in his 1932 book "Die gruppentheoretische Methode in der Quantenmechanik". You can probably also find a discussion of this in the more recent book by Biedenharn and Louck.
answered Sep 9, 2019 at 14:57