Re: Best textbook on Quantum Chemistry

On 2006-04-29, Wate <waterfallgalz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi,

What's the best Quantum Chemistry textbook available with good
clarity. Do you still recommend those written ages ago by Linus
Pauling?

Thanks.

Wate

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McQuarrie is a typical example with very good(IMO) mathematical treatment. I
really liked Levine (IIRC, it was more than one volume years ago):
Quantum Chemistry (5th Edition) (Hardcover) by Ira N. Levine

Frank Pilar's is older, was used a lot, and available used for `$10:
Elementary Quantum Chemistry, Second Edition (Paperback) by Frank L. Pilar

Anything by Pauling is ageless (IMO). Even his "General Chemistry" has a
clarity that many intro texts lack.

Introduction to Quantum Mechanics with Applications to Chemistry (Paperback)
by Linus Pauling, E. Bright Wilson

(Getting EB Wilson along with Pauling is very nice)

I didn't know this before:
Molecular Vibrations : The Theory of Infrared and Raman Vibrational Spectra
(Paperback) by Edgar Bright Wilson....a re-issued classic
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One can seriously started in Quantum Chemistry by first studying Infrared
(and microwave) spectroscopy of small molecules and then doing the
electronic stuff. It's a matter of which side of the Born-Oppenheimer
approximation you want to start with. If that's the case, then a book on
chemical group theory might be good to have to0 although many of the intro
texts do a minimal treatment.

Chemical Applications of Group Theory, 3rd Edition (Hardcover)
by F. Albert Cotton

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YMMV

.