For an overview of my research interests go back to my page on the Department's Web Site.
For the Fall semester, 1999, I taught Chemistry 480A. I am leaving the web page active because there's a lot of possibly useful material on it.
Some of the courses I teach or have taught are:
The Summer Session Chemistry 480A. (I am leaving this page up so anyone interested can see what Summer Session Physical Chemistry is like);
You can see the syllabus for my graduate course in quantum chemistry Chemistry 680.
I have also left up some material on the introductory chemistry course I taught Chemistry 101A.
Access to other useful and interesting information is given below.
The VSEPR method is useful for predicting the shapes of molecules. VSEPR stands for Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion. The best way to get a feel for the shapes of molecules is to work with models. The next best way is to use computer graphics to show the shapes of molecules. We have provided data on a few molecules, some small and some large. You can view these molecules in several different ways and rotate them to get a feel for their shapes.
We also have provided some crystal structures, including diamond, graphite, and the three most common types of cubic one-to-one crystals (NaCl, CsCl, and ZnS).
Here is a collection here of atomic and molecular orbitals (hydrogen atomic orbitals up through 4f), sp, sp2, and sp3 hybrid orbitals, some simple molecular orbitals for the nitrogen molecule, and the six simplest pi molecular orbitals in benzene. All of these can be viewed with the RasMol program (instructions are given for down-loading this program). These orbital graphics - which can be rotated on your screen - will give you a feel for the shapes of the various atomic orbitals, hybrid orbitals, and simple molecular orbitals.
In addition, you can view a limited set of hydrogen atomic orbitals at Professor Kent Wilson's Website at the University of California, San Diego. Select "Physical Chemistry."
There are some very nice pictures of hydrogen atomic orbitals at a site constructed by Dr. Yue-Ling Wong . This site will also lead you into some really neat graphics techniques, if you're interested in such things. (On Dr. Wong's page you get a plot of the orbitals themselves rather than the probability densities. The color indicates the sign of the orbital function. On my page I approximate a surface of constant probability density.)
This page last updated 21 Jan 00.
(Click on the fractal to see it full size.)