Subject: Zorro ! Re::Why the Z-mattrix ...?

From: Jerome Baudry <jerome..at..scs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 18:53:15 -0600 (CST)

Caro Olalla

David's answer's pretty good, but the real reason is that it was invented
by Don Diego de la Vega, better known as Zorro. When he was not busy
fighting the Spanish army (no offense) in "el Pueblo de Los Angeles", he
was active in theoretical chemistry - a major tour de force at that time.
It is said that he was able to write the Z-matrix of methanol in just one
movement of his sword (1), which led eventually to this matrix being
called the "Zorro matrix", later shortened to the "Z-matrix"

;-)

(1) Bernardo: "Don Diego de la Vega, the forgotten father of ab-initio
chemistry". Edited by Captain Monastario, Madrid.

> The explanation I heard was that originally one had to input the atomic
> number (Z) rather than the atom symbol as the first column of the
> matrix.
>
>>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Computational Chemistry List [mailto:chemistry-request..at..ccl.net]On
> Behalf Of Olalla Nieto Faza
> Dear netters,
> I have been looking for the answer to this question for quite a while,
> but I could not find anything.
> Does anyone know why a z-matrix is called z-matrix?
> Thank you in advance.
> Regards,
>