In chemistry, the valence (or valency) of an element is a measure of its combining power with other atoms when it forms chemical compounds or molecules. The concept of valence was developed in the last half of the 19th century and was successful in explaining the molecular structure of inorganic and organic compounds. The quest for the underlying causes of valence led to the modern theories of chemical bonding, including Lewis structures (1916), valence bond theory (1927), molecular orbitals (1928), valence shell electron pair repulsion theory (1958) and all the advanced methods of quantum chemistry.