This invaluable book provides a balanced and integrated introduction to the quantum world of atoms and molecules. The underlying basis of quantum mechanics is carefully developed, with respect for the historical tradition and from a molecular angle. The fundamental concepts in the theory of atomic and molecular structure are thoroughly discussed, as are the central techniques needed in quantum-chemical applications. Special attention is paid to exposing and clarifying the common ground of Hartree-Fock theory and density-functional theory. Throughout the text, the discussion is pedagogically...

The. simplest picture of an atom, a molecule or a solid is the picture of its distribution of charge. It is obtained by specifying the positions of the atomic nuclei and by showing how the density, p(E), of the electronic charge-cloud varies from place to place. A much more detailed picture is provided by the many-electron wavefunction. This quantity shows not only the arrangement of the electrons with respect to the nuclei, but also the arrangement of the electrons with respect to each other, and it allows the evaluation of the total energy and other properties. The many-electron...

"The Theory of Atomic Spectra", surrrrnanzlllg all that was then known about the quantum theory of free atoms; and in 1961, J.S. Griffith published "The Theory of Transition Metal Ions", in which he combined the ideas in Condon and Shortley's book with those of Bethe, Schlapp, Penney and Van Vleck. All this work, however, was done by physicists, and the results were reported in a way which was more accessable to physicists than to chemists. In the meantime, Carl J. Ballhausen had been studying quantum theory with W. Moffitt at Harvard; and in 1962 (almost simultaneously with Griffith) he...

The. simplest picture of an atom, a molecule or a solid is the picture of its distribution of charge. It is obtained by specifying the positions of the atomic nuclei and by showing how the density, p(E), of the electronic charge-cloud varies from place to place. A much more detailed picture is provided by the many-electron wavefunction. This quantity shows not only the arrangement of the electrons with respect to the nuclei, but also the arrangement of the electrons with respect to each other, and it allows the evaluation of the total energy and other properties. The many-electron...