Do the scopes of the tags theoretical-chemistry, quantum-chemistry, and quantum-mechanics differ noticably enough in order to keep them all or can we merge two of them? IMHO, the quantum-mechanics tag is well suited for questions about the foundations and the more mathematical aspects of quantum theory that might have no direct connection to chemical systems, e.g. questions like this one, this one, or this one. That leaves theoretical-chemistry and quantum-chemistry for questions with a more chemistry-related background: But I think we don't need both of them and should merge quantum-chemistry into theoretical-chemistry since the latter one is a little more general. But I'm not working directly in the field of Theoretical Chemistry so there may be reasons for keeping the tags seperate.
-
$\begingroup$ The theoretical chemistry tag is used in a different context here. It may cover theories in general. While the quantum tags are dealing with more specific Subfields. I think all these tags are quite well established and we should keep them. But i admit that these tags are quite similar and a proper assignment is difficult. $\endgroup$– Martin - マーチン ModCommented May 20, 2014 at 18:06
-
2$\begingroup$ @Martin What do you think about merging quantum-mechanics and quantum-chemistry? While mathematically-oriented questions might not exactly fit into quantum-chemistry those things are usually part of university courses on Quantum Chemistry or could be considered as being related to the field. And since this is Chemistry.SE I don't think we will get a whole lot of questions about Quantum Mechanics that wouldn't fit into quantum-chemistry while still being on-topic here. "Physics" questions about, say, the Aharonov-Bohm-Effekt would be better suited Physics.SE anyway. $\endgroup$– PhilippCommented May 20, 2014 at 18:22
2 Answers
After spending a few weeks in the community, I think quantum-mechanics and quantum-chemistry should be merged.
I'm less certain about theory vs. computational chemistry. Perhaps that distinction can be maintained, since one is about the actual theory and one is about carrying things out on a computer.
But in the case of the two quantum tags, I see a lot of confusion and most questions with one are tagged in the other as well.
I'm bringing this back up, since I think we really should merge the tags.
-
$\begingroup$ What do you think about merging the quantum tags into theo-chem? Or do you think they can be sufficiently distinguished? I am myself often confused whether to use the one term or the other. $\endgroup$– Martin - マーチン ModCommented Sep 25, 2014 at 0:42
I generally (at least now) like the idea of merging quantum-machanics and quantum-chemistry into theoretical-chemistry.
However, the use of theoretical-chemistry is very vague and broad at the same time. It may deal with all sorts of different models and theories, at least judging from the scope of the questions, this is the use of this tag.
- orbitals: Bonding in diatomic C2, a carbon-carbon quadruple bond?
- solid state chemistry: Are chiral quasicrystals possible?
- kinetics: Definitions of autocatalysis
- nanotech: What does the charge distribution around a Stone-Wales defect look like?
- general terminology and their application: What does "reaction coordinate" mean? What does it mean when a reaction has TWO reaction coordinates?
Unfortunately the tag wiki is incomplete at best and the scope of these questions is just mentioned as:
For questions seeking generalised answers deduced from or composed of theories regarding the chemical reactions involved.
We also have a general without description and only 5 questions, while theo-chem has 55.
A lot of these questions also deal with models that would generally be considered quantum-chemistry or physical-chemistry. Appropriate retagging would be in order, as I think that theo-chem defines the scope of the questions best (in comparison within the range organic-chemistry, inorganic-chemistry, ...).
We might then want to go ahead and create a tag like the proposed general, but with a more meaningful name, like general-theories, chemical-models, ... (I cannot think of good ones right now). But yet again I am not sure if we actually need that.
If we clean up this tag, i.e. removing it from those questions that fit better in other categories, then I think merging would be very well applicable.
In general I think that conjunctional tagging is more appropriate in most cases:
- quantum-mechanics is in the scope of physical-chemistry and theoretical-chemistry
- quantum-chemistry is (almost always) in the scope of computational-chemistry and theoretical-chemistry and there are even more specific tags
-
$\begingroup$ Geoff restarted the discussion about this in another question. Is this still how you feel it should go, or have things changed based on the current usage? $\endgroup$– jonsca ModCommented Sep 23, 2014 at 18:11