måndag 24 februari 2025

ChatGPT on Covalent Chemical Bond

Here is a transcript of a conversation with chatGPT 4.0 on the physics of covalent bond as the main form of chemical bond supposedly arising from "sharing of electrons" between atoms in a molecule as a main theme of recent posts. I am informed that 

  • Our current understanding of chemical bonding is one of the great successes of quantum mechanics.
  • At a conceptual level, we now know that chemical bonds arise from the interplay between electron kinetic energy and the Coulombic attractions between electrons and nuclei.
  • In summary, while the core physics of chemical bonding is well established and successfully applied in many areas, key challenges remain.
  • There is, in fact, a broadly accepted quantum mechanical view of chemical bonding. The core idea is that bonds—especially covalent bonds—arise from the sharing of electrons through the constructive interference of atomic orbitals, which results in an increased electron density between nuclei and a lowering of the system’s energy.
  • So while the overall quantum mechanical picture of bonding is well established and widely accepted, the “extra” details—how exactly to describe, partition, and interpret a bond in a way that aligns perfectly with our classical intuition—remain active areas of research. 
  • The broadly accepted view is that chemical bonds form when electrons are not confined to individual atoms but instead occupy molecular orbitals that extend over two or more nuclei. This “sharing” of electrons—lowers the total energy of the system and creates stability.
  • ...the detailed picture of exactly how this sharing occurs is described in multiple, often complementary, ways. 
  • So, while everyone agrees on the overall principle that bonds form due to electron sharing, the “fine print”—the precise partitioning, the weighting of different interactions, and the best way to capture these details in a simple picture—remains subject to ongoing investigation and debate. 
  • The full quantum mechanical description of chemical bonds is governed by the many‐electron Schrödinger equation—a set of precise, well‐defined mathematical rules. In principle, this description is unambiguous and exact. However, because the resulting many-electron wavefunction is extremely complex and high-dimensional, it isn’t something we can “inspect” or visualize directly in simple, chemical terms.
  • In summary, there is broad agreement on the precise underlying quantum mechanics, but because the full description is not directly accessible to our intuition, different models are used to interpret it, leading to differences in the way we talk about chemical bonds.
What I learn from this conversation with chatGPT, the only available partner since real chemists stay silent, is that there is a precise quantum mechanical description of covalent bond, but unfortunately this description is behind a pay wall for human intelligence. Is this a true description of state of the art of the  physics of molecules? What if it is true?


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