1 / VOL. 1, NO. 4 ISSN 1430-4171 THE CHEMICAL EDUCATOR http://journals.springer-ny.com/chedr © 1996 SPRINGER-VERLAG NEW YORK, INC. 10.1007/s00897960051a Computers in Chemistry Using Java to Animate the Vibrations of Molecules: Calculation and Visualization of Molecular Vibrations in (NSF) 3 J. L. YARGER 1 , A. CHIZMESHYA 2 , B. K. YARGER 3 1 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry 2 Material Research Group 3 Department of Information Technology Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287 Animation of molecular vibrations can greatly aid in the physical understanding of vibrational spectroscopy… he ability to animate molecular motion and interactively rotate the system in three-dimensional space is extremely helpful in communicating chemical concepts such as reactions and molecular vibrations. Here, we present a Java program and a chemical plug-in that allows the animation of molecules within popular world wide web browsers. To illustrate the usefulness of animation as a visualization aid, the molecular vibrations of (NSF) 3 are simulated using a general atomic and molecular electronic structure system (GAMESS). Introduction The ability to animate chemical motion is a standard feature in numerous software programs [1]. Through definition of a mime type and helper applications, software programs can T