Editorial

Chemistry was earlier a descriptive science. The fact that most of the studies in chemistry had not the rigor of mathematics was the reason that chemistry was developed by the great experimentalists.

However, in the beginning of quantum mechanics, a chemical physicist, Robert S. Mulliken, who was a brilliant spectroscopist started developing the orbital theory, atomic orbitals and then  molecular orbitals to describe the bonding and calculating the energies from the spectra of molecules and won his Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Herzberg was a Canadian physical chemist, for twenty years, he was head of the physics division of National Research Council in Ottawa which he made into a world-renowned spectroscopie laboratory, studied free radicals and Lamb shift in hydrogen like atoms with highly ionized atoms. He got his Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1971.

Coulson had made enormous contribution to molecular orbital theory. Being a mathematician, he built theoretical chemistry, contributing in a major wayand developed application of quantum mechanics to study bonds and molecular orbitals. He was first a professor of theoretical physics, then applied mathematics and finally theoretical chemistry, wrote on meteorology, biology and theology.

Huckel was a physicist and theoretical chemist, drifting from maths to chemistry 'developed Huckel's molecular orbital theory'.

These four case studies show that drifting from maths to physics and then chemistry results in the enrichment of each subject and the molecular orbital theories would have been difficult for pure chemists. But for their exposure to chemistry, others could not have made such important contributions to chemistry. Given the constraints in our university system, although it will be difficult to efface the borders, common programmes of research and a synergetic outlook will make our research more productive. While during college days, studying subject by subject could be useful, once they come to the research side, one has to consciously break the barriers instead of putting them into water light compartments and each one being confined to "his topic". Upsurge in research can come only through synergy.