Dangerous relationships or inevitable associations: quantum chemistry at the crossroads of chemistry, physics and mathematics

Abstract

In this paper I discuss three issues which manifest the particularities of quantum chemistry, epistemological as well as social, through the evolving (re)articulations of quantum chemistry with chemistry, physics and mathematics. The first is to trace the historical becoming of quantum chemistry. The second is that arguments to follow are not to be solely based on what we used to call internalist considerations. The third point is that the gradually articulated relative autonomy of quantum chemistry has been dramatically transformed with the advent of the first digital computers in the early-1960s.