Subject: CCL:HYBRIDIZATION NOT "REAL";V. FOCK

From: Eric Scerri <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 16:27:02 -0700

>  QUESTIONS:
>
>  (1) Did Linus Pauling _invent_ hybridization? He certainly popularized
>  it.
>

I believe that hybridization was introduced independently and at 
around the same time by Slater.

>  (2) Did Pauling accept that hybridization is "only" a mathematical
>  procedure?
>

Pauling's views on hybridization and resonance have been much 
debated.  Among other things his writings were the cause of the "ban" 
on quantum mechanics which occurred in the 1950's in the former 
Soviet Union.

Articles dealing with the reality or otherwise of Pauling's concepts include,

Vermeeren, 1986, Controversies and Existence Claims in Chemistry, The 
Theory of Resonance,
Synthese, 69, 273-90.

Pauling himself debated the reality of orbitals, and hybridization 
with Ogilvie among others in the pages of Journal of Chemical 
Education.

see Ogilvie, J, 1990, The Nature of the Chemical Bond-1990, Journal 
of Chemical Education, 67, 280-90.  and follow up letters to the 
editor  and a full article reponse by pauling.

Pauling, L. 1992, The nature of the Chemical Bond- 1992, Journal of 
Chemical Education,
65, 519-21.

>  -----
>  By the way, does anyone know where Vladimer Fock got his Ph.D., and
>  where and when he died? I think he worked at the University of St.
>  Petersburg/Leningrad.
>

A recent article on the life and work of Fock appeared in Chemical 
Intelligencer.

>regards,
eric scerri
-- 
Dr. Eric Scerri ,
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry,
UCLA.
Los Angeles,  CA 90095
USA

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