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Hartree Fock

David Mazziotti

The Hartree-Fock method is an approximation to the many-electron Schrödinger equation in which the many-electron wave function is an antisymmetrized product of orbitals. Minimizing the energy with respect to this wave function yields an energetically optimal set of orbitals known as the Hartree-Fock molecular orbitals. Because of the wave function’s orbital-product form, the many-electron Hamiltonian can be represented by an effective one-electron Hamiltonian in which the two-electron Coulomb repulsion terms are replaced with a mean-field repulsion in which a single electron experiences the average repulsion of the remaining electrons.

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Heat Capacity

Sidney Starr

Heat capacity is a measure of the amount of heat it takes to change the temperature of a substance by one degree Celcius. Because materials have different heat capacities, different substances respond to heat in various ways. For instance, if a piece of copper is held over a fire, its temperature will rise very quickly. However, it will typically take water a few minutes over a fire before it becomes hot. This is because water has a much higher heat capacity than copper, so more energy is needed to raise its temperature by the same amount.

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