Inconsistency in quantum chemistry? The case for electronegativity

JUAN CAMILO MARTÍNEZ GONZÁLEZ; KLAUS RUTHENBERG

Londres

Simposio; International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry_Summer Symposium; 2014

London School of Economics and Polotical Science

p.sdfootnote-western { margin-left: 0.6cm; text-indent: -0.6cm; margin-bottom: 0.35cm; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; }p.sdfootnote-cjk { margin-left: 0.6cm; text-indent: -0.6cm; margin-bottom: 0.35cm; font-family: "WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; }p.sdfootnote-ctl { margin-left: 0.6cm; text-indent: -0.6cm; margin-bottom: 0.35cm; font-family: "Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; }p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 10); line-height: 120%; text-align: left; }p.western { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }p.cjk { font-family: "WenQuanYi Micro Hei"; font-size: 12pt; }p.ctl { font-family: "Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; }a:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); }a.sdfootnoteanc { font-size: 57%; }With the first attempts to measureelectronegativity (EN) and the development of quantum chemistry, thereference of the EN concept started to be discussed in the scientificcontext.Due to the growth of different conceptualizations and methods ofempirical determination (by, e.g., Pauling, Mulliken, Sanderson, andAllred), EN has become a particular case of different theoreticaldescriptions of ? presumably ? the same property which coexist inthe practice of chemistry.The present work lays out an attempt to describe the problem ofreference in (quantum) chemistry through the study of applicationdomains of different EN scales and their conceptual assumptions. Theapplicability of inter-theoretic relations like reduction,consistency and complementarityis discussed in detail.