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World champion chemists 57

not certain that computers will beat people. However, the odds are stacked
in favour of the computer, which will be able to develop and optimise many
more routes than it is possible for synthetic chemists to consider directly.
How difficult is organic synthesis? We will be taught the answer by the
computers which extend the art beyond the heights reached by human
scientists.

3.1 Further reading

Dirac, P. A. M. 1929 Quantum mechanics of many-electron systems. Proc. R.
Soc. Lond. A 123, 714–733.
Pauling, L. 1945 The nature of the chemical bond. Ithaca, New York: Cornell
University Press.
Goodman, J. M. 2000 Solutions for chemistry: synthesis of experiment and
calculation. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 358, 387–398.