The orbital: a pivotal concept in the relationship between chemistry and physics? A comment to the work by Fortin and coauthors

Abstract The present work is a comment of a recent paper by Fortin and coauthors (Fortin et al. in Found Chem 19:43–59, 2017) in which the authors propose the introduction of Bohmian mechanics (BM) in the philosophy of chemistry and the use of standard quantum mechanics (SQM) as a mere instrument of prediction. This way would allow overcoming the obstacles found in linking molecular chemistry and quantum mechanics. Starting from some remarks on the orbital concept, we highlight and discuss some general issues that need to be taken into account when two scientific theories coexist within the same investigation field, i.e. SQM and BM.