Electric Forces and Electronic Configurations in Carbon Compounds

Abstract

AT THE Chicago meeting of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY in April 1948, several papers relating to the physical nature of chemical binding were presented by the author and his associates, Theodore Berlin, Beth Cook, and Peter A. S. Smith. The problem of chemical binding was approached from a point of view which differs considerably from the classical valence bond theory and its usual electronic interpretations ( 1 ). Although the current theories have been extremely useful for the representation of a great number of compounds, it is sufficient to mention carbon monoxide in order to demonstrate that the valence bond theory was not completely satisfactory from the very outset (ca. 1860). The main assumption of this theory is the mutual saturation of a definite number of valences, that is, short range forces emerging from neutral atoms and acting between nearest neighbors only. This idea appears to apply satisfactorily ...