Annie was a participant in the Understanding Chemical Bonding project. She was interviewed near the start of her college A level course (equivalent to Y12 of the English school system). Annie was shown, and asked about, a sequence of images representing atoms, molecules and other sub-microscopic structures of the kinds commonly used in chemistry teaching. She was shown an image intended to represent the electron 'cloud' around the nuclei in a hydrogen molecule.
..any idea what this is meant to be?
(pause, c.4s)
Oh, err, I can visualise the work. It’s the attraction, of two hydrogen atoms. I can’t think what it’s called. Sort of, you’ve got two electrons, two atoms, and it’s the way that the, the force pulls them together. And the sizes of them.
Okay, so what kind of force is it that pulls them together?
Their, their electrons, the lack of, lack of them and abundance of them.
Right and in this case, hydrogen, is it a case of lack of electrons, or abundance of electrons?
Lack of them.
So they, so each atom is lacking how many electrons?
One.
One. So that lacking of electrons pulls them together because they’ve got a desire to make up the full numbers.
To make, yeah.
Is that, is that right.
Yeah.
Previously in the interview Annie had discussed how (neutral) atoms had charges when they had an 'extra electrons' or were 'minus an electron' compared with a full shell (see Plus and minus signs represent the charges on atoms), and here it seems that Annie considered these deviation charges could actually be the basis of forces between atoms, in effect the chemical bonding between the atoms.
Return to ECLIPSE homepage
List of science topics
Dr Keith S Taber kst24@cam.ac.uk
University of Cambridge Faculty of Education
© Keith S Taber, 2012