You might also enjoy his "The Nature of the Chemical Bond". I acquired my copy an age or two ago from The Library of Science (remember that???) but only dipped into to it for the first time about 3 years ago. The book's contribution to the lucidity of my interaction it far exceeded mine, unfortunately (I'm a mathematician who never took a course in physics, or any lab science, after a disastrously poor high school course--although I still managed somehow to learn, only one age ago, about the Legendre polynomial/spherical harmonic relationship, not that I've ever had occasion to make any use of it in my own work!), but even so I came away with some curiosities satisfied, and I'm sure your experience would be much better.
> Thanks for the recommendation. Sarah had > bought a copy of Pauling's 'Introduction to > Quantum Mechanics' and it had sat at my > periphery until the other night when I read > your post. In one of those few moments of > invincible lucidity, I managed to read the > first 120 pages, deeply satisfying many of > my curiosities. Pauling's exposition was > surprisingly clear, though I must mention > that he also does not mention the direct > connection between Legendre polynomials > and spherical harmonics (thanks wiki!). ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
