Concept Amalgamation and Representation in Quantum Chemistry

Abstract

This chapter discusses the introduction of quantum mechanics into chemistry in the first half of the twentieth century. This history has received significant attention from other scholars. The aim of this chapter is to emphasize certain relations between elements of familiar stories that, although philosophically noteworthy, have yet to be highlighted. The narrative takes a particular perspective and in so doing, the chapter suggests a fruitful domain for philosophy of chemistry to explore concerns aspects of chemical practice that are perhaps distinctive and may serve to differentiate chemistry from other physical sciences. Chemistry has always been a practical science, with its hands ever steeped in “stuff”, that is, macroscopic substances. Exceptions to broad generalizations are easy to find and yet here is one that nevertheless seems to hold a nontrivial grain of truth. Unlike certain branches of physical science where the development of theory has been accompanied by increasingly rarified experimental practice that in effect elects theoretical particles to the status of quasi-observables, the empirical realm to which theory is accountable in the bulk of chemistry has remained largely unchanged since the eighteenth century. Modern chemistry seems to offer a prime vantage point for observing what happens when the gap between theory and the empirical realm grows ever more wide. This chapter emphasizes the ways that chemical practice bridged the chasm between a new quantum theory and the empirical domain of substances.