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Structural Chemistry

Chemical change: how quantum chemical resonance conceptions restore common-sense understanding of Schrödinger’s cat and Wigner’s impossible-life paradoxes

Frank Weinhold

Published Jun 18, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We address basic questions concerning the atomistic-level description of “chemical” materials and their “changes” in the framework of current quantum mechanical understanding of natural phenomena. In this framework, we show how modern quantum chemical analysis of chemical reaction mechanisms, based on Fukui’s intrinsic reaction coordinate (IRC) and the Pauling-like bond order descriptors of natural resonance theory (NRT), can serve to resolve the logical paradoxes of Schrödinger’s cat and Wigner’s “impossibility of life” proof in common-sense manner.

DOI
10.1007/s11224-026-02819-0

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We address basic questions concerning the atomistic-level description of “chemical” materials and their “changes” in the framework of current quantum mechanical understanding of natural phenomena. In this framework, we show how modern quantum chemical analysis of chemical reaction mechanisms, based on Fukui’s intrinsic reaction coordinate (IRC) and the Pauling-like bond order descriptors of natural resonance theory (NRT), can serve to resolve the logical paradoxes of Schrödinger’s cat and Wigner’s “impossibility of life” proof in common-sense manner.
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The Schrödinger equation for quantum mechanics, which is approachable in third-person description, takes for granted tenseless time that does not distinguish between different tenses such as past, present, and future. The time-reversal symmetry grounded upon tenseless time globally may, however, be broken once measurement in the form of exchanging indivisible quantum particles between the measured and the measuring intervenes. Measurement breaks tenseless time locally and distinguishes different tenses. Since measurement is about the material process of feeding and acting upon the quantum resources already available from any material bodies to be measured internally, the agency of measurement is sought within the environment in the broadest sense. Most indicative of internal measurement of the environmental origin are chemical reactions in the reaction environment. Temporality naturalized in chemical reactions proceeding as being subjected to frequent interventions of internal measurement is approachable in second-person description because of the participation of multiple agents of measurement there. The use of second-person description is found in the appraisal of the material capacity of generating, distinguishing, and integrating different tenses. An essence of the temporality to be naturalized is within the genesis of different tenses. A most conspicuous exemplar of naturalized temporality is sought in the origins of life conceivable exclusively on the material ground.
The application of modern quantum chemical methods to the simulation of chemical reactions makes it obvious that the Copenhagen picture of quantum mechanics cannot be maintained. In ab-initio molecular dynamics methods, any kind of matter is described by applying the Schrödinger equation to the electronic structure and using classical Newton dynamics for the motion of the atomic nuclei. By lots of calculations on this basis, it has become obvious that this concept is superior to a quantum chemical description of nuclear motion. The nuclei move according to Newton's laws in a perfectly local and deterministic way while the surrounding electronic cloud determines bonding and antibonding interactions between the atoms. The resulting theory is a deterministic formulation of quantum mechanics which is free from paradoxa and is able to explain complex phenomena like photochemistry. An obvious consequence is that molecules like ammonia can have a permanent dipole moment in spectroscopic measurements, while consistent application of traditional quantum mechanics predicts a higher symmetry as is outlined in the paper.
A quantum Matter-Photonics framework is adapted to help scrutinize chemical reaction mechanisms and used to explore a process mapped from chemical tree topological model. The chemical concept of bond knitting/breaking is reformulated via partitioned base sets leading to an abstract and general quantum presentation. Pivotal roles are assigned to entanglement, coherence,de-coherence and Feshbach resonance quantum states that permit apprehend gating states in conversion processes. A view from above in the state energy eigenvalue ladder, belonging to full system spectra complement the standard view from ground state. A full quantum physical view supporting chemical change obtains.