Quantum Chemistry vs Physics: A Student's Dilemma

[mccoy1]

What's the different between quantum chemistry and quantum physics? I did quantum chemistry as elective in second year but I didn't like it. I didn't like the chemistry as a whole though because it's too hard(thousands of reactions that you have to remember in each branch!). I want to switch programs and go for physics. What do you guys think?

 

[alxm]

What's the different between quantum chemistry and quantum physics? I did quantum chemistry as elective in second year but I didn't like it. I didn't like the chemistry as a whole though because it's too hard(thousands of reactions that you have to remember in each branch!). I want to switch programs and go for physics. What do you guys think?

Kind of like asking what the difference is between fluid dynamics and classical physics. The latter forms the basis of the former, which is an area of application of that area of physics. You need to understand quantum physics to do quantum chemistry.

Now, you're a bit unspecific about what you didn't like about quantum chemistry. And I have of course no idea what they tried to teach you or how. (But I''d assume that particular course didn't include any rote learning of chemical reactions!) If it was a second-year undergrad course, I'm thinking it really covered just the basics of QM, mostly? Did you get as far as deriving the Hartree-Fock approximation?

But I'd have to say if you didn't like quantum chemistry, for whatever reason, it's not a very good sign for physics, since it's to a large part the exact same stuff, only 'more of it', applied to other things.