Hinne Hettema asked in 2008:
This question directly connects to RealQM vs StdQM as the theme of recent posts. The question can be reformulated in several different ways:
- Is chemistry more than applied StdQM? If so, what is missing in StdQM?
- Does StdQM serve as the scientific foundation of chemistry?
- Can physics of molecules be reduced to physics of atoms?
- Does the Schrödinger wave function contain all there is to say about an atom, or molecule?
- If not what is missing?
chatGPT gives us the following clarifying answers:
- The answer to whether standard quantum mechanics provides a constructive foundation for chemistry is negative.
- While Schrödinger’s equation applies to molecules in principle, StdQM functions as a predictive formalism for measurement outcomes rather than a theory of real molecular structure.
- Stable molecules, definite geometries, and chemical bonds do not emerge from the wave function alone but only after invoking Born’s rule, classical nuclei, symmetry breaking, and chemically motivated approximations.
- These elements are not consequences of the axioms of StdQM but external interpretive additions.
- Consequently, chemistry is not reducible to applied StdQM: quantum mechanics constrains chemistry, but it does not construct it.
We learn that Quantum Chemistry as applied StdQM is a failed project. A new foundation of chemistry is needed. Maybe RealQM is a step in the right direction?
Inlägg
Do you have any insights on the importance (or not) of "quantum mathematics"? Don't mind about physics specifically, just asking from the point of view of the development of mathematics. From what I read in a book quantum means kind of the same as noncommutative, the main example being replacing diagonal matrices/diagonal operators (identified with continuous functions on a space) by general square matrices/operators.
SvaraRaderaSchrödinger's equation was generalised from one electron to many by a purely formal mathematical procedure adding a new 3d spatial coordinate for each additional electron into a mathematical equation without physical meaning as "quantum mechanics". That was an unfortunate step in the wrong direction with serious consequences for modern physics.
SvaraRadera