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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The Controversy Between Erich Hückel and Linus Pauling over the Benzene Problem

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Shortly after Huckel’s quantum-theoretical work on the problem of aromatic compounds was published, the first paper on the same subject by the American Linus Pauling also appeared. It was the fifth installment of a total of seven that Pauling published between April 1931 and July 1933 under the general title The Nature of the Chemical Bond.This fifth part was the first coauthored with his pupil George Wheland, a National Research Fellow in Pasadena. In their quantum mechanical treatment of benzene, naphthaline and free organic radicals, they applied a “VB” approximation slightly different from Huckel’s “first method” yet sharing some resemblance with it. The two subsequent parts of Pauling’s series were copublished with John Sherman. These authors analysed thermochemical data to calculate the resonance energies of a large number of organic molecules, aromatic and conjugated systems