The calculation of molecular spectra from the time of Bjerrum to the present day

Brian T. Sutcliffe

Laboratoire de Chimie quantique et Photophysique, Université Libre be Bruxelles, 
1050 Bruxelles, Belgium

The development of the standard model for assigning a structure to a molecule on the basis of spectral evidence is described up to its definitive placing in quantum mechanical form by Watson in 1968. The computational realisation of this model and some of the alternative models that have since been developed are then considered.