Analysis of the concept of minimum energy path on the potential energy surface of chemically reacting systems

Some confusion regarding the properties of minimum energy paths is evident in the literature. We show that a way of steepest descent on a potential surface can be defined independently upon the choice of the coordinate systems. The result is applied to mass-weighted coordinates and their use is critically reviewed. Fukui's IRC appears to be a special case of the steepest descent path starting from a saddle point. The impossibility to define a general ascent path is illustrated and the relations of IRC to real trajectories are discussed.