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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 1999  > August  >
Research: Science and Education
Chemical Bonding as a Superposition Phenomenon
Frank Weinhold
Theoretical Chemistry Institute and Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706
Cover
August 1999
Vol. 76 No. 8
p. 1141
Abstract
The most profoundly "weird" aspects of Schrödinger's wave equation are known to originate in the quantum superposition principle and associated wavelike interference phenomena. We show that the characteristic phenomena of chemistry-covalent and coordinate bonding, resonance delocalization, aromaticity, H-bonding, hyperconjugation-can also be seen as special cases of a central superposition paradigm: the "donor-acceptor" interaction between filled and unfilled orbitals. Elementary consequences of this picture can be worked out with no more difficult mathematical steps than solution of the quadratic equation. A remarkable result of this treatment is that donor-acceptor superposition must lead to energy lowering ("bonding" or "stabilization") in a way that is virtually independent of details of the kinetic or potential energy terms in the Schrödinger equation. Thus, the deepest "explanation" of chemical bonding appears to lie in the superposition phenomenon itself, rather than in the comforting quasi-classical images (viz., "expanded box length" or "attraction of the electron to both nuclei") that are often invoked in freshman chemistry textbooks. We present specific suggestions for how these concepts can be better integrated into freshman-level teaching.
More Information
*  Citation
 Weinhold, Frank. J. Chem. Educ. 1999 76 1141.
*  Keywords
 Bonding Theory; Quantum Chemistry; Aromaticity / Aromatics; Intermolecular Forces; Quantum Chemistry; MO Theory; General Chemistry
*  History
 Created:
Last Updated:		 July 8, 1999
June 23, 2005
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