Course abstract

The aim of this course is to provide a systematic treatment of symmetry in chemical systems within the mathematical framework known as group theory. Once we have classified the symmetry of a molecule, group theory provides a powerful set of tools that provide us with considerable insight into many of its chemical and physical properties. Some applications of group theory that will be covered in this course include: i) Predicting whether a given molecule will be chiral, or polar; (ii) examining chemical bonding and visualizing molecular orbitals; (iii) predicting whether a molecule may absorb light of a given polarisation, and which spectroscopic transitions may be excited if it does; (iv) investigating the vibrational motions of the molecule, etc.