SORRY FOR TYPING ERRORS IN MY LAST MESSAGE. THIS MESSAGE IS THE
REPLACEMENT.
1) I asked: "Do bonds exist in nature or do they exist only in our
models of nature?"
William Robertson replied: "A philosophical question, I think. What is
real and what isn't real?"
2) Here is what I think:
Yes, it was a philosophical question. But this question is probably
worth discussing here. Yes, I know that there are many philosophical
questions that should not be discussed here.
I would say that real is what would exist if all humans disappeared.
Planets, for example, are real. Kepler's laws, Newton laws, etc, are
models humans created to explain planetary motions.. I am not a
chemist but think that bonds are components of models. Atoms, on the
other hand, are real. Who know which conceptual models will be
invented to better describe atomic processes in the next century. But
atoms will most likely behave in the same way as today.
3) In my opinion, a model which allows us to think in terms of the
cause and effect relations can often be useful.