Do you need to believe in orbitals to use them?: Realism and the autonomy of chemistry

Philosophy of Science 70 (5):1052-1062 (2003)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Eric Scerri and other authors have acknowledged that the reality of chemical orbitals is not compatible with quantum mechanics. Recently, however, Scerri and Sharon Crasnow have argued that if chemists cannot consider orbitals as real entities, then chemistry is in danger of being reduced to physics. I argue that the question of the existence of orbitals is best viewed as an issue of explanation, not metaphysics: In many chemically important cases orbitals do not make sufficiently accurate predictions, and must be replaced. Chemists and physicists can acknowledge this fact while maintaining the utility of orbitals and the autonomy of chemistry.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
109 (#149,647)

6 months
3 (#445,838)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Why orbitals do not exist?Martín Labarca & Olimpia Lombardi - 2010 - Foundations of Chemistry 12 (2):149-157.
On the alleged non-existence of orbitals.Peter Mulder - 2010 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 41 (2):178-182.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references