Abstract
A quantitative treatment of ${\pi}$-nonbonded and $n-{\sigma}^{\ast}$ interactions and through-bond coupling effect was attempted using n-butane, n-butyl radical, and tetramethylene diradical. Results of STO-3G level calculations showed that: (1) conformational preferences can be predicted quantitatively based solely on the additive effect of ${\pi}$-nonbonded and $n-{\sigma}^{\ast}$ interactions, the predominant effect being the ${\pi}$-nonbonded interactions, (2) $(n-{\sigma}^{\ast})_{anti}$ is destabilizing whereas $(n-{\sigma}^{\ast})_{syn}$ is weakly stabilizing, which are contrary to what we expect from the normal $n-{\sigma}^{\ast}$ interaction, (3) througb-bond coupling of the two radical lobes is destabilizing for the triplet but stabilizing for the singlet tetramethylene diradical.