Subject: Pauling and orbitals

From: Eric Scerri <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 08:47:09 -0800

THe original question which started this thread was partly about Pauling's
OWN views about hybridization and orbitals.

I think Pauling was surprisingly naive philosophically when it came to
interpretation of what he was doing.  I base this on the following personal
anecdote.  When the debate with Ogilvie was taking place in J. Chem. Ed.
the same issue that carried the Pauling response also included three other
reponses including a brief piece by myself.  I used this as an excuse to
get in touch with Pauling to try to explore his view further.  In his reply
he said almost verbatim,

"Orbitals clearly exist since Mulliken and I have been writing about them
for the past 60 years"

I could not resist replying that storytellers have also been writing about
unicorns for many years.

Dr. Eric R. Scerri

Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry,
UCLA,
607 Charles E. Young Drive East,
Los Angles,
CA 90095-1569,
USA

tel:  310 206 3708
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