The lecture opens with tricks ("Z-effective" and "Self Consistent Field") that allow one to correct approximately for the error in using orbitals that is due to electron repulsion. This error is hidden by naming it "correlation energy." Professor McBride introduces molecules by modifying J.J. Tho...
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Professor McBride outlines the course with its goals and requirements, including the required laboratory course. To the course’s prime question "How do you know" he proposes two unacceptable answers (divine and human authority), and two acceptable answers (experiment and logic). He illustrates t...
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Professor McBride begins by following Newton’s admonition to search for the force law that describes chemical bonding. Neither direct (Hooke's Law) nor inverse (Coulomb, Gravity) dependence on distance will do - a composite like the Morse potential is needed. G. N. Lewis devised a "cubic-octet" ...
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After pointing out several discrepancies between electron difference density results and Lewis bonding theory, the course proceeds to quantum mechanics in search of a fundamental understanding of chemical bonding. The wave function ψ, which beginning students find confusing, was equally confusin...
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Continuing the discussion of Lewis structures and chemical forces from the previous lecture, Professor McBride introduces the double-well potential of the ozone molecule and its structural equilibrium. The inability for inverse-square force laws to account for stable arrangements of charged part...
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This lecture begins by applying the united-atom "plum-pudding" view of molecular orbitals, introduced in the previous lecture, to more complex molecules. It then introduces the more utilitarian concept of localized pairwise bonding between atoms. Formulating an atom-pair molecular orbital as the...
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Professor McBride uses a hexagonal "benzene" pattern and Franklin’s X-ray pattern of DNA, to continue his discussion of X-ray crystallography by explaining how a diffraction pattern in "reciprocal space" relates to the distribution of electrons in molecules and to the repetition of molecules in ...
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After showing how a double-minimum potential generates one-dimensional bonding, Professor McBride moves on to multi-dimensional wave functions. Solving Schrödinger’s three-dimensional differential equation might have been daunting, but it was not, because the necessary formulas had been worked o...
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Professor McBride introduces the theory behind light diffraction by charged particles and its application to the study of the electron distribution in molecules by x-ray diffraction. The roles of molecular pattern and crystal lattice repetition are illustrated by shining laser light through diffr...
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Professor McBride expands on the recently introduced concept of the wave function by illustrating the relationship of the magnitude of the curvature of the wave function to the kinetic energy of the system, as well as the relationship of the square of the wave function to the electron probabilit...
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Professor McBride begins by using previous examples of "pathological" bonding and the BH3 molecule to illustrate how a chemist’s use of localized bonds, vacant atomic orbitals, and unshared pairs to understand molecules compares with views based on the molecule's own total electron density or on...
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Professor McBride uses this lecture to show that covalent bonding depends primarily on two factors: orbital overlap and energy-match. First he discusses how overlap depends on hybridization; then how bond strength depends on the number of shared electrons. In this way quantum mechanics shows that...
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