Subject: CCL:RE: [Re]: orbitals and reality

From: "Steve Bowlus" <chezbowlus(at)goldrush.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:46:33 -0800

Hmmm ... the tone of this discussion reminds me of my undergraduate
philosophy of science course.  If my memory serves, there was a school of
philosophers which held that "reality" and "real objects" were defined by
the operation(s) that measured them.  Essentially, an object was "made" real
by the process of measuring it, and defined by the measurement.  An extreme
view within the school held that particular reality was true for only so
long as the measuring operation was applied ...

Orbitals as mathematical constructs certainly exist (as equations on paper
and in the cool, color graphics of which we are so fond); it may be that
orbitals as objects could not be realized because we had no means to measure
or observe them.  There is/was no property defining "orbital-ness."  Within
this school (and applying the sturdy ignorance of common sense), I would
suggest that a "free" (same as "virtual?") orbital does not physically exist
until it is populated: it lacks the fundamental property (observability)
needed to define it.  This is not the same as  "What properties would we
expect if the orbital were populated?" ... which is how we define virtual
orbitals in the first place.

The above school of thought gives an interesting perspective on the old saw,
"Does a tree falling in the forest make noise if no one is there to here
it?"  Similarly, do orbitals exist if we have no way to observe them?  Maybe
someone out there who is a serious student of the philosphy of science could
comment on this aspect, or refer the thread to a scientist/philosopher who
is ...

sb

-----Original Message-----
From: Computational Chemistry List [mailto:chemistry-request(at)ccl.net]On
Behalf Of Michel Petitjean
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2005 2:17 AM
To: chemistry(at)ccl.net
Subject: CCL:[Re]: orbitals and reality

To: chemistry(at)ccl.net
Subject: CCL:[Re]: orbitals and reality

Dear CCLers,

I have not read the original paper from which the debate seems to
originate, but I have here a naive question for those who think that
an orbital is a physical thing rather than a mathematical model:
what is the physical reality of a free orbital (i.e. no electron
inside) ?

Michel Petitjean                      Email: petitjean(at)itodys.jussieu.fr
FIS2005 coordinator                   http://www.mdpi.org/fis2005
Editor-in-Chief of Entropy            http://www.mdpi.org/entropy
ITODYS (CNRS, UMR 7086)
1 rue Guy de la Brosse                Phone: +33 (0)1 44 27 48 57
75005 Paris, France.                  FAX  : +33 (0)1 44 27 68 14
http://petitjeanmichel.free.fr/itoweb.petitjean.html

-= This is automatically added to each message by the mailing script =-
To send e-mail to subscribers of CCL put the string CCL: on your Subject:
line
and send your message to:  CHEMISTRY(at)ccl.net

Send your subscription/unsubscription requests to: CHEMISTRY-REQUEST(at)ccl.net
HOME Page: http://www.ccl.net   | Jobs Page: http://www.ccl.net/jobs

If your mail is bouncing from CCL.NET domain send it to the maintainer:
Jan Labanowski,  jlabanow(at)nd.edu (read about it on CCL Home Page)
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+