Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by selimthegrim 4639 days ago
There are very deep reasons for this - the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, a central simplifying assumption, imposes some constraints on the system that make it easier to model with (semi)classical dynamics, even when you marry it with modern techniques such as DFT.

Kieron Burke has a nice take on the matter.

http://www.tddft.org/TDDFT2008/talks/KB.pdf

see also http://www-fourier.ujf-grenoble.fr/~joye/simon2006.pdf, esp. its ref. 93