The Chemical Bond

Description

The chemical bond is the backbone of chemistry. It defines chemistry as the science of understanding and transformation of the physical world in terms of interatomic interactions, which are considered as chemical bonds. Thus, chemistry appears right at the beginning as a fuzzy discipline because the distinction between chemical and nonchemical interatomic interactions is not exactly defined, which creates ongoing controversial debates. But the fuzziness of chemical bonding posed no obstacle for the advancement of chemical research from an esoteric playground to a highly sophisticated academic discipline, which became the basis for industrial growth and economic wealth. In the absence of a physical understanding of chemical bonding, chemists used their imagination and creativity for designing models that proved to be very useful for rationalizing experimental observations.

It was the goal of the editors to give a comprehensive account of the present knowledge about the chemical bond and about the most important quantum chemical methods  which are available for describing chemical bonding. The two volumes of The Chemical Bond are intended to be an authoritative overview of the state-of-the-art of chemical bonding.