<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>I love atomic orbitals, I spent days plotting them out by hand on polar graph paper when I first learned about them.</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/pauling/bond/" target="_blank">http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/pauling/bond/</a> is an archive of Linus Pauling papers. Pauling figured out orbital hybridization over 1927-1931. Slater figured it out at about the same time. They submitted papers within a month of each other that were both published in the spring of 1931. Scans of both papers are in the Pauling archive, and there's a slightly breathless narrative that explains how Pauling's version came about. For a more systematic treatment, you could look at Pauling's Introduction to Quantum Mechanics with Applications to Chemistry (thank you Dover Books) first published in 1935.</div><div><br></div><div>-- rec --</div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr">On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 1:58 PM Jon Zingale <<a href="mailto:jonzingale@gmail.com" target="_blank">jonzingale@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">Dave,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">It is good to hear your voice. Sarah is presently</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">finishing a pair of chemistry classes at UNM.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">In classic St. John's style, she is constantly</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">bringing me the kind of thoughtful questions</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">which send me diving into books on quantum</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">mechanics and wishing my group theory were</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">stronger. Most recently, we attempted to understand</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">the mechanics of hybridization.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">Almost nowhere can I find a clear exposition</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">connecting the theory (with its Lie groups and</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">discussions of overtones) to the empirical.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">Penrose's book, from what I remember, similarly<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">falls short. The <a href="https://www.amazon.com/GAUGE-FIELDS-KNOTS-GRAVITY-Everything/dp/9810220340" target="_blank">Baez book</a>, which a few of us</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">formed a reading group around last year, did a</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">fairly good job of connecting the many ideas</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">and technologies mathematical physicists use</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">in developing modern theory. Often the requisite<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">mathematics is beyond what can be expected for</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">a PhD in mathematics. However, the text left me</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">with a feeling of efficacy that I could track down</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">the needed math and get to work.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">Perhaps tangentially (wrt philosophy of science), </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">there has been some interest around the table here</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">in reservoir computing, and some of the bold claims</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">about being able to <a href="https://mail-attachment.googleusercontent.com/attachment/u/0/?ui=2&ik=a33a25cbf7&attid=0.1&permmsgid=msg-f:1617592106450468931&th=1672d7735074c043&view=att&disp=inline&sadnir=2&saddbat=ANGjdJ-zXLctoXRpve6kgzzxO-OjAEPIbgA9WwC-xPKH4loEyEuhdwm8ZhXn4L_yzdC9cU8Iv0yIZEUq5__8Z0AMXdihGbHmvSidrDaZd8aggIPRGdpN0xc91Vx7ZZBtrMuV6rG0tPBj-eNyADuZJKYJ0aNnNfxRZ4s3TgZwGB9Tj3jDfFLJFCFaWyo7KxEw5csL5tFGb3xAQz2d8g4r-e_ZDKwJrUT4Bqnzl73cn2NvPbX-v2AtOFi4xpE6Yyd-7pL_bU6iuLD5oyF8RJqmMtRM_bGTMorQbgrq6m617Du-aGKz2NodqSCMmy-TS596IwkFBiUOepBHyUA11T8s6uSW6pNonwbKu0WLJkNAMwXNuyylbnFoLP5ZFtx-PXZGakgknOoNqNsDAfnG_Wg9IODOxxtstFs6NcNRwwaHjBVD1N2Fw2rXt-dyLMmy7PSMRT1EKt4l05axXk0JebhcrPpob9FSfm7uIxTL7DxUpqW_AeZeTnRC5G6ZH0vAPZM-w20cRVvv24dxex7yWGOFneUQRhVqGQlDag4mRYCCta2fC0ghB7yBUs5sF-ak4oSVhyG1cAYHiXS_BvxuXKLYpsHwGGuZL_GHzcAxTwD60Lxqqz2ReEF3x1sy4jMbT2sXQigsse6ZVQs9hUoYGDqL" target="_blank">predict chaotic trajectories</a> in the</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">Kuromoto-Sivashinsky equations eight Lyapunov</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">times into the future. While I have some loose sense<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">for why some standard deep learning techniques</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">work, the echo-state network approach has been</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">down-right baffling to me. I mention this for two</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">reasons. First, I trust your expertise in computing</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">systems could offer some insight. Second, here is</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">another moment in the history of science where we</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">are running to form solid theory in the face of</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">overwhelming odds, all-the-while the effectiveness</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">of the empirical is plain as day. I sincerely hope</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">that as this work is carried out, we manage to do</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">a better job tracing the development of this knowledge</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">than was done with the development of quantum</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">mechanics. Perhaps some text can tell me once and</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">for all whether the energies associated with orbitals</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">are a consequence of spherical harmonics?</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">What about the geometry of molecular configurations?</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">Cheers,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333">Jonathan Zingale</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:garamond,serif;font-size:small;color:#333333"><br></div></div>
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