From the point of view of a philosopher of chemistry, can chemistry be reduced to physics?
ES: First let me say that I do not try to answer the ‗in principle question of whether chemistry can be reduced to quantum mechanics. My emphasis has always been on the extent to which chemistry has in fact been reduced to quantum mechanics. After all, who really knows what is possible in principle or what might be possible via a future development in quantum mechanics? On the other hand, one can carefully examine whether present day quantum mechanics does a good job of explaining in a more fundamental manner chemical phenomena such as perhaps the form of the periodic table. I have claimed that although quantum mechanics gives a perfectly good ab initio explanation of the lengths of periods of elements it does not fully explain the precise order of shell filling which is summarized by the n + l or Madelung rule which is familiar to anyone who has studied college or even high school chemistry. And let me repeatI am not claiming that such an explanation is not possible in principle but j
