Bonds in Chemical Formulas
The fact that atoms and molecules are three-dimensional makes it difficult to use a single technique for indicating orbitals and bonds. In molecular formulas the chemical bonds (binding orbitals) between atoms are indicated by various methods according to the type of discussion. Sometimes, they are completely neglected. For example, in organic chemistry chemists are sometimes concerned only with the functional groups of the molecule. Thus, the molecular formula of ethanol may be written in a paper in conformational, three-dimensional, full two-dimensional (indicating every bond with no three-dimensional directions), compressed two-dimensional (CH3–CH2–OH), separating the functional group from another part of the molecule (C2H5OH), or by its atomic constituents (C2H6O), according to what is discussed. Sometimes, even the non-bonding valence shell electrons (with the two-dimensional approximate directions) are marked, i.e. for elemental carbon .'C'. Some chemists may also mark the respective orbitals, i.e. the hypothetical ethene−4 anion (\/C=C/\ −4) indicating the possibility of bond formation.
Read more about this topic: Chemical Bond
Famous quotes containing the words bonds, chemical and/or formulas:
“In America a woman loses her independence for ever in the bonds of matrimony. While there is less constraint on girls there than anywhere else, a wife submits to stricter obligations. For the former, her father’s house is a home of freedom and pleasure; for the latter, her husband’s is almost a cloister.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“If Thought is capable of being classed with Electricity, or Will with chemical affinity, as a mode of motion, it seems necessary to fall at once under the second law of thermodynamics as one of the energies which most easily degrades itself, and, if not carefully guarded, returns bodily to the cheaper form called Heat. Of all possible theories, this is likely to prove the most fatal to Professors of History.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“That’s the great danger of sectarian opinions, they always accept the formulas of past events as useful for the measurement of future events and they never are, if you have high standards of accuracy.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)