Group Theory and its Chemical Applications

Group theory turns the intuitive idea of molecular symmetry into a rigorous algebraic tool, letting you predict which orbitals can mix, which vibrations are IR or Raman active, and which electronic transitions are allowed — all before doing any heavy quantum mechanical calculation. You'll spend the semester assigning point groups, manipulating character tables, building symmetry-adapted linear combinations, and using them to work through MO diagrams and ligand field splittings, with Cotton as the standard reference. As a graduate course it assumes solid undergraduate inorganic and quantum background, and the machinery you build here underlies almost any later work in spectroscopy, organometallic bonding, or computational chemistry.