Perspective on "quantentheoretische beiträge zum benzolproblem. I. Die elektronenkonfiguration des benzols und verwandter beziehungen"

Guided by an intuitive choice of approximations which shows remarkable chemical insight into the topic of aromaticity, Hückel mastered the difficult mathematical treatment of a complex molecule like benzene at a very early stage of quantum theory using method 1 (now valence bond theory) and method 2 (now molecular orbital theory). He concluded that method 2 is clearly superior to method 1 because the results of this method explain directly the peculiar behaviour of planar molecules with 6 π electrons.