Re: Peroidic Table (was exclusion principle which was electrons)

[Chuck Britton <britton@NCSSM.EDU>]

Fibbing isn't the word that usually is used - but it might as WELL be.

A grad school colleague of mine was doing 'ab initio' calculations on
the alkali metals in the '70's. He was with the group that John
Slater formed and led at U of Florida. Final Defence comes around and
his result is challenged because they don't agree with the 'ab
initio' results from MIT. Some months later he uncovered the
'arbitrariness' of setting the ground state energy (by MIT) to agree
best with experimental results.

There is 'ab initio' and then there is 'ab initio'.

(ONLY mathematics can prove stuff and THAT depends on carefully noted
assumptions)


At 11:22 AM -0500 11/15/03,  John S. Denker wrote:
> So all these guys who write papers that talk about "ab initio"
> calculations are fibbing?
>   e.g. http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/pt/allan/Research/poster/poster.html
>        http://content.aip.org/JCPSA6/v91/i11/7011_1.html
>        http://content.aip.org/JCPSA6/v111/i23/10436_1.html
>        etc.
>
> I found those and 3000 others via
>    http://www.google.com/search?q=hartree-fock+ab-initio+transition-metal


--
Chuck Britton                                   Education is what is left when
britton@ncssm.edu                       you have forgotten everything
North Carolina School of Science & Math         you learned in school.
(919) 416-2762                                  Albert Einstein,        1936