In the world of electrical charges, opposites attract and like repels. It is much the same as the chemistry you feel in a relationship with someone who has an opposite interest and personality. The world of science can sometimes be simpler than your relationship though, as when these forces of attraction and repulsion are finely balanced then tiny creatures, like electrons and protons, can come together to make atoms, and the atoms can come together to form molecules.
The process of how this happens is similar to the beginning of some human relationships. At first, when you’re not in an “exclusive relationship” or in a relationship that some old folk call “going steady”, at first you may be dating a few people that interest you to determine who you have a real connection with. In this case, there are no strings attached but if you begin to have feelings for a specific person you may eventually want to be in a stable “steady” relationship with them. If that stable relationship lasts long enough, you might decide to ‘put a ring on it. In the science world, all the protons and electrons are always moving around as well, so a union of chemical species only qualifies as a chemical bond if the aggregate formed is stable (or ‘steady’ as we would put it) – that is if it survives for long enough of course.
Sometimes electrons, instead of being evenly spread around the atom, can gather to one side and, very briefly, have a stronger than usual influence on their neighbours (which could perhaps be a molecule). In this case, instead of just flying by it hangs around for a while longer although no bond is formed. This is much like our human casual relationships that were meant to last a few short weeks (or days) but then he or she ends up hanging around for a bit longer than expected. Those could be the times when your relationship status on Facebook changes to “it’s complicated”. In such cases in these kinds of relationships in humans and such relationships of electrons and atoms, things still come to an end eventually…there’s just not enough chemistry.
What determines whether a bond can form?
In the case of atoms, they accept electrons while some atoms favour giving them away.
For example, in a grain of salt, the ions of sodium donate electrons to the chloride. Each sodium ion is surrounded by a chloride ion, and their difference in charge pulls them together, the rest of the electrons make sure they don’t get too close – so it’s the mutual attraction and repulsion of alternating ions that keep them locked together. Often the electrons are not separated from their atoms but are shared between them.
An oxygen molecule can share two electrons with another to form a molecule. Sometimes these electrons are not equally shared, like in molecules of water or DNA. The electrons may spend more time around certain atoms in a bond, but bonds are most favourable with atoms with similar affinities for electrons. In other substances some electrons are shared by many atoms that have no fixed abode and drift freely from one atom to another- they are like the friends you know that never quite settle into a relationship.
It’s amazing to think that all the ways these little atoms jump around and get bound up with one another add up to the diversity of the things we see, taste, and touch but also that these molecular interactions are similar to our human experience of how we bond with each other. Romantic attachments are based on those forces of attraction that eventually could lead to a lingering entanglement, a bond…or it could not. It ultimately all depends on the chemistry.
