Shockwave Simulations and Visualization for Teaching Quantum Chemistry

Quantum chemistry has many concepts that are either abstract or counterintuitive, giving students difficulties in understanding them. Fortunately, the advancement of web technologies provides us with hordes of powerful tools to produce rich multimedia web applications that supplement traditional classroom teaching. In this paper we present an approach to address this issue that combines interactive simulations and visualization on the web browser using Shockwave technology. With several examples, we show how to take advantage of the features of the Shockwave technology in developing web-based course material with ease.