BOOK REVIEW: Electronic Properties of Aromatic and Heterocyclic Molecules - T. E. Peacock

Electronic Properties of Aromatic and Heterocyclic Molecules by T. E. Peacock
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Heterocyclic organic molecules are a very interesting class theoretically and this little book maintains a focus on that class.


The most valuable aspect of this book for a chemist is that it garners much insight from the point of view of Hückel theory--a perspective which is often lost in modern computational and theoretical chemistry. The intuitiveness of Hückel's MO theories lends itself to being more easily understood, despite the inherent limitations of Hückel's theory.

Finally, the main contrast in the book is between Hückel models and self-consistent field theory (SCF). In 173 pages, you have a to-the-point, practical discussion of pre-DFT, pre-HF theory pertaining to heterocyclic molecules (mostly 6-membered rings).

The topics include:

1. The many-electron atom
2. MO theory
3. Valence bond theory
4. Improvements on Hückel models
5. Self-consistent field theory
6. Molecular ground states
7. Electronic spectra

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