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The stationary states electrons can have within molecules?. |
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The stationary states electrons can have within molecules. |
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Note that every molecular orbital covers the whole molecule; they are not localized to particular bonds. This actually happens whether the atoms have an energy advantage to grouping or not - strictly speaking, there is mixing between orbitals of atoms light-years away from each other, and although the resulting orbitals do not have energy different from those of the atomic orbitals, the electron density is always high near all the nuclei. This is a reflection of the fact that all electrons are identical, so there is no real way to distinguish the electrons of the two separated atoms. To make up for this we often take linear combinations of molecular orbitals so that electron density is localized around atoms, and between them (hybridized bonds), but it should be remembered that these are not stationary states, so although they are useful in treating electron density they have no real meaning in terms of energy. |
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Note that every molecular orbital covers the whole molecule; they are not localized to particular bonds. This actually happens whether the atoms have an energy advantage to grouping or not - strictly speaking, there is mixing between orbitals of atoms light-years away from each other, and although the resulting orbitals do not have energy different from those of the atomic orbitals, the electron density is always high near all the nuclei. This is a reflection of the fact that all electrons are identical, so there is no real way to distinguish the electrons of the two separated atoms. To make up for this we often take linear combinations of molecular orbitals so that electron density is localized around atoms, and between them (hybridized bonds), but it should be remembered that these are not stationary states, so although they are useful in treating electron density they have no real meaning in terms of energy. |
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