[grey_whiskers]

But today we can simply calculate the properties of the carbon-carbon bond using simple quantum mechanics (I remember actually doing this in 10th grade)

What did you use? Hartree-Fock, perturbation theory, CI, density functional theory, or...?

Cheers!

[John Locke]

Thanks for the post. As I recall, back in those days it was mostly Hartree-Fock. We did use perturbation theory for the H-H molecular bond, but just so we could learn it.