Sunday, January 14, 2018

Is there any emerged master principle in chemistry, like the theory of evolution in biology?


The question is about emergence and reductionism.


Except for a few exceptions, such as dark matter, most phenomena in Nature could be reproduced from the standard model and general relativity with great accuracy. Up to a Planck scale, there is no inconsistency between general relativity and quantum theory by means of effective theory. However, at different level of complexity, a new principle may emerge. One example is the theory of evolution in Biology.


Is there any similar emerged master theory in Chemistry that comparable with evolution in Biology?


Here, the emerged master theory means:




  1. It is not just a brute-force ab initio computation (emergence). Here I have excluded explicitly correlated Gaussian.





  2. The theory is universally valid. Not like 8- and/or 18-electron principle and/or VSEPR and/or periodic table, we know there are many exceptions.




  3. The theory should generate experimentally testable predictions, hopefully quantitative. Here I have excluded Bader's QTAIM at its current form. Atom in molecule and types of chemical bonds are anyway not observables. One may see some correlation between Laplacian at bond critical point with other molecular properties, and do some fitting or hand-waving argument. Such fitted relation could be useful. However, it is a fitting, not a derivation from its principle. I do not regard it as a prediction.




  4. The theory should not be discovered in condensed matter physics first. Here I have excluded spontaneous symmetry breaking.





  5. I do not expect the statement like, there is no master principle in chemistry is the master principle in chemistry.






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