1 - Introduction

Summary

This introductory chapter has two goals. The first one is usual for books of this kind and is aimed at providing the reader with a brief outline of the background history of the subject, its main content, form of presentation, and correlation with other related subjects. The second goal is to give this introduction in a way which allows the reader to get a general (although maybe rather rough and superficial) impression of the whole subject and its possibilities, a very brief insight into this trend without reading the corresponding chapters or sections. This is done keeping in mind that quite a number of physicists, chemists, and biologists, who at present are not engaged in the use of the Jahn–Teller effect, may be interested to know in general the status quo in this field and make a fast choice of the parts of it they may be interested in. In other words, the introduction is aimed at giving a very brief qualitative description of the main features of the Jahn–Teller effect theory in a way useful also for the reader who has no intention to read the whole book or its parts. The applications of the theory to chemical problems and molecular systems are given in Chapter 7, while the Jahn–Teller effect in specific solid-state problems is considered in Chapter 8.