WHAT MAKES METAL (SOLID), A METAL (SOLID) AND, WHAT MAKES LIQUID, A LIQUID AND, UNAVOIDABLY, WHAT MAKES GAS, A GAS

"...Not many, including chemistry students, chemists, and even chemistry academicians can answer the question fittingly and correctly. That’s no surprise." The variety in the answers is what makes the understanding, even better.

These are profound questions found in the basic chemistry lesson in any chemistry textbook, in any chemistry class for beginners and in any chemistry chapters that discuss the concept of chemical bonding.

Every chemist, be it analytical, organic, inorganic, physical, or formulation profession, understands the idea of chemical bonding. One can simply ask what are the types of bonding found in nature? …and positively the terms ionic and covalent bondings are repeatedly mentioned. Seldom, we will hear a person mentions metallic and coordinate bondings. The latter two bonds, if mentioned, are usually by academic-chemist or chemical bond enthusiast. Haha…

If one were asked, what makes metal is a metal, chemically or physically? Many will answer it’s because of its metallic bonding. I think such an answer and its similar ones are lame and not convincing, not scientific, less logic and badly chosen.

If one were asked, what makes water a liquid, chemically? Many, too, will answer it’s because of covalent bonding, hydrogen bonding and very often, we will tend to get ‘due to its lower boiling point’ answer. Another boring peremptory answer scheme.

If one were asked, what makes oxygen a gas at room temperature, chemically and physically? Many will answer it’s because of its very low boiling and melting points, molecules are attached by weak Van der Waal’s forces, and perhaps, because they are also covalent-bond molecule! Terse, mind-numbing thought!

But, alas, these replies are what many will find in most exam papers in schools, foundation centers, universities – 1st- to 3rd-year chemical/science/engineering degree programs, and worse in Google’s, too.

As a chemist, it is not I oppose with all those answers but I would rather think the answers are not fundamentally figured, not-knowledge building and, to some extent, imaginary.

Worse, it is a trend in chemical pedagogy; textbook writes the answer and it explains the same way the students answered (or vice versa), lecturer lectures a similar way, course notes tell the same thing, Google expresses the matching article, too. All in all, they are all similar ‘answers’ voiced with different tones and written with diverse fonts.

So, what are the right answers? As science is speedily evolving, a new right way to address it must be made available – concise, knowledge-building and explanatory. I urge chemists from all over the world to rethink the way we answer the question and the way we explain chemical bonding to the public and experts.

To deal with this, one needs to go to thermodynamic, molecular kinetics, kinetic molecular theories and the ground level of chemical bonding and intermolecular forces; attractive and repulsive forces (I like the way Prof. Atkins describes chemical bond and intermolecular forces in his Physical Chemistry textbooks)!

But, if everyone has to go to that extreme to understand ‘what makes a metal (solid), a metal (solid) …’, then science will end instantaneously. So, someone has to find a way to simplify it and make it fun.

Not many, including chemistry students, chemists, and even chemistry academicians can answer the question fittingly and correctly. That’s no surprise.

I come to realize that many of the answers given for the abovementioned questions incorrect after I found out that there’s no or little science in the answers. Science questions must be addressed scientifically, logically, mathematically.

Till then …

P/S: The article was originally posted on my FB on August 7, 2014.