On 11/14/2003 09:01 PM, Craig Lucanus wrote:
>
> We have devised a set of mathematical rules that seems to fit the
> observations of chemical properties, with a basis in numerology, if
> that's what you want to call quantum numbers,
That's the wording most people would choose. Quantum
mechanics is science. Numerology is not; it has to
do with the occult, essentially the opposite of science.
> and a knowledge of the number of
> electrons in an atom. The exclusion principle is one of the
> fundamental mathematical rules.
OK.
> Applying these rules requires a bit of jiggery- pokery too, like
> starting to fill outer shells before inner ones are full, without any
> numerological (mathematical) basis for doing so,
It's not jiggery-pokery. It's physics. It's potential
energy and kinetic energy and the equation of motion.
The mathematical and physical basis is well established.
> Nobody has determined, ab initio at least, why this should occur,
Really?
The current state of the art is to calculate _ab initio_
not just atoms but molecules. I've seen papers on things
as big and tricky as benzene. Also molecules with
transition elements in them.