- #1
kelly0303
- 579
- 33
Hello! I am a bit confused about Born-Oppenheimer approximations in molecules (mainly diatomic ones). It seems that all the books where I read about it, it is presented as a major breakthrough (at least in the context of molecular physics), but when I look into it in more details, it seems to involve just the separation between the electronic and nuclear motion. Am I missing something? I am totally aware that this approximation is extremely useful and given that it was derived in the early days of quantum mechanics makes it even more impressive, but it just seems like the obvious, first thing to do, as a first approximation in this situation. So I feel like I am missing a deeper insight into the meaning of this approximation. Can someone enlighten me please? Thank you!