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Notes: Gas phase rovibrational analysis of ν1, ν2, and ν3 vibrationally predissociating fundamentals arising from D–F, D–C, and C≡N stretching vibrations of DCN–DF are reported. The rotational substructure in these fundamentals and a total of five associated hot bands have been assigned, thus providing precisely determined band origin frequencies, distortion, and rotational constants. The following molecular parameters were determined for the three fundamentals (in cm−1): ν0(ν1)=2730.8909(2), ν0(ν2)=2638.1309(1), ν0(ν3)=1943.0046(3), B0=0.111 807(1), D0J =0.1946(4)×10−6, α1=0.001 449(2), α2=−0.003 00(1), α3=−0.000 399(1). The l-type doubling constants q‘7 =0.378(3)×10−3 and q7 =0.380(3)×10−3 cm−1 were determined from the observed splitting in ν2+ν17−ν17. Anharmonic cross terms X027 =−0.600(3) and X037 =−0.61(3) cm−1 were also evaluated. Lifetimes of the ν1, ν2, and ν3 excited states were demonstrated to be 5.7(6)×10−10, 5.2(5)×10−9, and 3.0(5)×10−9 s, respectively.

Notes: The infrared spectrum of the intermolecular bending vibration, the ν16 band, of the heterodimer HCN---HF has been obtained with 0.010 cm−1 resolution, and the rotational structure of this band has been assigned. The spectroscopic constants of the ν16 state in cm−1 are: ν0=550.0285(2); B6=0.117 652 9(10); D6J =0.2791(5)×10−6; q6=0.579(8)×10−4; α6=−0.002 137(1), where the uncertainties cited are one standard deviation.

Notes: A continuously tunable single frequency color center laser has been used to investigate the rovibrational static gas phase infrared spectra of the ν1 (H–F stretching vibration) and its hot bands ν1+ν17 −ν17 and ν1+ν4−ν4 in the linear dimer HCN---HF. Observed perturbations in the ν1 and ν1+ν17 −ν17 subbands results from Coriolis interactions of the excited vibrational states ν1 and ν1+ν17 with ν2+2ν4+ν17 and ν2+2ν4+2ν07 , respectively. The influence of Coriolis interactions and vibrationally predissociating excited state lifetimes of 1.06(10)×10−10 s are considered in simulation of the observed band profiles. Molecular and anharmonic cross term parameters associated with investigated vibrational states are also presented. Anharmonic crossterms X(open circle)14 , X(open circle)17 , and X(open circle)47 are evaluated as 8.0252(73), 4.2162(53), and 1.000(49) cm−1, from the available data, including the analysis from the unresolved spectra of ν1−ν4 and ν1−ν4+ν17 −ν17 . The differences of the band origins in ν1 and ν1−ν4 give a value of ν4=168.344(21) cm−1 for the local spacing of the low frequency hydrogen-bond stretching vibration.

Notes: The infrared spectrum of the overtone of the "intramolecular'' bending vibration 2ν05 of the hydrogen bonded complex HCN---HF centered at 1437.539 91(24) cm−1 has been obtained with a resolution of 0.006 cm−1. Line assignments for this band as well as two hot bands 2ν05+ν17−ν17 and 2ν05 +2ν27−2ν27 have been made, and rotational constants for all the levels involved have been determined. Despite the fact that the higher J energy levels of the observed lines of 2ν05 are above the dissociation energy of the complex, no predissociative line broadening is apparent.

Notes: Gas phase rovibrational analysis of the high frequency intermolecular hydrogen bonded bending overtone 2ν06 [ν0=1132.4783(2) cm−1] in HCN---HF and its corresponding perdeuterated fundamental ν16 [ν0=409.1660(2) cm−1] are reported. Evaluated rovibrational parameters provide the basis for quantitative modeling of the molecular dynamics associated with this vibration. A quantum mechanical calculation permits determination of the quadratic and quartic force constants K66=537(17) and K6666=4.98(12) cm−1 which in turn are used to estimate the pertinent cubic band stretching interaction constants K466=−149.3(50) cm−1 and account for the unexpected behavior in the rotational constant B16. Second order expansion of the vibrational term energies, give X46=−21.61(2), X67=−7.694(1), X66=−14.84(90), g66=−31.04(90) cm−1, neglecting corrections for Fermi resonance. The common isotopic species equilibrium rotational constant Be is evaluated to be 3681.1(11) MHz.

Notes: Conclusion To argue that Maigret's method is ethnomethodology still leaves open the question whether he is an historian or a sociologist. This is a question about method, not about the name of disciplines. Maurice Mandelbaum once made the distinction in these words: The task of the historian is not one of tracing a series of links in a temporal chain; rather, it is his task to analyze a complex pattern of change into the factors which served to make it precisely what it was. The relationship which I therefore take to be fundamental to historiography is ... a relationship of part to whole, not a relationship of antecedent to consequent. Mandelbaum's historian relates the part to the whole, leaving it for the sociologist to relate the antecedent to the consequence. If that is so, then Maigret is first an historian ascertaining and accumulating the subjective meanings that individuals use to produce the facticity of their own lives. And in the course of so doing he discovers the nature of the reality in which the crime occurred. Once he finds his way into the realities of the crime there is time and need for the sociological analysis of antecedent and consequent. To suggest a comparison, Maigret practices in miniature the method of Norbert Elias in that he tries to understand his subjects as they understand themselves. Maigret's is an idiographic science and not a nomethetic one. For this reason Maigret, unlike Holmes, almost never refers to previous cases in the effort to understand the matter at hand. The temptation is to conclude that Maigret is a little like Fernand Braudel in combining history and sociology by turns. But I wonder if there is not a more profound sense in which Maigret, if not all sociologists, is an historian. If we have any knowledge it is of the past, not of the present or the future. Minerva's owl does indeed take wing only at dusk, as Hegel wrote. By the time we have understood the present, it is the past. If Maigret's aim is not the unvarnished truth, that is not because of the constraints of police work but because of the constraints of the world. The irony of Maigret's ethnomethodology is this. Simenon's style is rightly celebrated for its evocation of atmosphere. The apposite analogy occasionally offered is between Simenon's spare and laconic style and Impressionist painting. Simenon does not describe people and places in the Maigret stories but suggests them with a sentence or two. The style is not realism, whatever the effect. As Rafael Koskimies has written, Simenon selects and simplifies. Impressionism is the style of painting that accepts the surface as reality. The play of light and color on the surface of objects is suggested on the surface of the canvas with the texture and color of the paint. If Simenon is an impressionist in his art, Maigret cannot be in his. He does not settle for the surface, but goes inside of it. Once there he learns all he needs to know and all that he can know. The confessions that so frequently occur in the Maigret stories do not confirm his suppositions, but release the tensions of the drama in a catharsis. Finally, if Maigret's Maigret must admit in his Memoirs that he could not in fact go into the detail of every reality personally in the manner described above, it only proves how terribly taxing the method called Verstehen is. To conclude, Maigret has a method, but it is not a recipe that others can follow step-by-step. His method is an orientation to reality and a commitment to understanding in a certain way. To call Maigret's procedure a method requires the definition of “method” to include more than cook books, however brilliant the cook books are. Maigret's method is a part of the context of discovery. Naive realists like Méchin imagine that they live only in the context of justification. Of course, no one's understanding is perfect. Maigret makes mistakes. There are times when an explanation based on behavior would be more accurate and economical. If Simenon does not dwell on Maigret's failures it is clear that Maigret uses other methods, too. The triangulation of a variety of methods is what in fact most of us practice whatever we preach.