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Asked by anon-350903 on 2 Mar 2023.
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Thomas Swift answered on 2 Mar 2023:
That’s a really big question, that goes deeper than you’d expect.
I’ll give you the ‘chemists’ answer – and say that physicists may well disagree with me.
Atoms, molecules, ‘stuff’ – doesn’t like to have excess energy. It’s not that ‘energy is bad’ – but if your ‘stuff’ has too much energy it’ll do whatever it takes to get rid of it. Atoms form molecules as a way of sharing out that energy – every chemical bond is a way of the atoms passing out the energy between them.
So, molecules form because they are more stable – and they are more stable because they have less energy.
But once you make a molecule it’s a ‘fixed thing’ – you would need to put in more energy to break it up and allow them to rearrange. So sometimes you have to put energy in to get more energy out. The universe is a descending ladder ‘good enough’ molecules that are okay as they are. The molecules that exist now are just the best way of all the atoms ‘spreading around’ that unwanted excess energy as best they can with what’s available in their immediate surroundings.
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Alice Martin answered on 2 Mar 2023:
Molecules are made up of atoms of specific elements. The combination of elements and the order in which they’re linked changes what molecule is formed. You can also make molecules out of other molecules. Like baking a cake, you can combine molecules (like ingredients) and a reaction happens to form a product (like making a sponge from bitter, sugar, flour and eggs).
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Maryam Sani answered on 2 Mar 2023:
A molecule is formed when two or more non-metal atoms share outer electrons, the form covalent bonds. for example Chlorine gas Cl-Cl where each Cl atom contributes one outer electron to make the bond. In the case of Oxygen gas O=O each O atom shares two of its outer electrons to form two covalent bonds. When atoms share electrons in this way they each gain a full outer shell of electrons.
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Rebecca Woods answered on 2 Mar 2023:
TLDR; Bonds form between atoms as this enables them to have a complete shell of electrons around them when they share electrons in covalent bonds. This makes them stable = happy.
This is a long and slightly complicated answer, so don’t worry if you get confused or don’t understand, and feel free to ask for clarification.
Molecules are formed of atoms, I study organic chemistry so most of the molecules I encounter are made of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), nitrogen (N) (and some P, S, Cl, Br, F, I). Each atom is made up of a positively charged nucleus and negatively charged electrons. The atoms like to have a full outer shell of electrons – octet (the electrons are in what chemists call orbitals). They achieve this octet either by giving up electrons (elements like alkali metals), gaining electrons (halogens – F/Cl/Br/I) these become ions and form ionic compounds (ionic bonding), or by sharing electrons (covalent bonding- makes molecules). Organic chemists look at how the electron orbitals can combine to form bonding (and anti-bonding) orbitals. When electrons are in a shared bonding orbitals a bond is formed between the atoms and these bonds connect atoms to form molecules. The nature of the orbitals (sigma vs pi – single/double bonds) influences the chemistry the molecule can do. For a molecule to break down or react with another molecule, electrons have to move from one orbital (based on an atom or between atoms) to another. In chemistry, we like to show how this works by drawing special arrows to show the flow of electrons.
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