fredag 20 februari 2026

Chemistry vs Quantum Physics vs RealSE

The reduction of chemistry to quantum physics described by Schrödinger's Equation SE envisioned by Dirac, has not been realised despite intense efforts over the now 100 years since SE was formulated, at least not according to chemists. For physicists, this represents a monumental failure of reductionism as the ideal of physics. If a molecule is more than physics, what is it?

The reason is the exponential computational complexity of SE formulated over $3N$-dimensional configuration space for an atomic system with $N$ electrons. Even if in principle chemistry is described by SE so that reductionism in principle is achieved, that is not enough for a chemist exploring a real world of molecules in 3D space. Chemists have thus been forced to replace SE as model of chemistry with drastically simplified versions of SE based on assumptions of both (i) physical nature (Born-Oppenheimer, orbitals, exchange, correlation, HF, DFT) and (ii) purely numerical (mesh resolution). 

This means that in chemistry SE is effectively replaced by simplified forms simpleSE based on partly different physics than SE, which cannot be reduced to quantum physics.

If the simplification was pure numerical, then reduction could work, but it also involves a lot of physics as new physics used by chemists, which cannot be traced back to SE. 

Both chemists and physicists have been trained to accept that reductionism does not work for chemistry in any form of practice, but the failure feeds into the present crisis of modern physics based on reductionism.  

RealSE is an alternative SE based on a single basic assumption of clear physical mathematical form (non-overlapping one-electron charge densities), which is a computable model of chemistry with mesh resolution as only input, thus making reduction of chemistry to quantum physics possible.  RealSE is submitted to Foundational Chemistry in a second round of submission towards acceptance.      

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