Posts Tagged ‘higher energy state’

Shorter is higher: the strange case of diberyllium.

Friday, January 21st, 2011

Much of chemistry is about bonds, but sometimes it can also be about anti-bonds. It is also true that the simplest of molecules can have quite subtle properties. Thus most undergraduate courses in chemistry deal with how to describe the bonding in the diatomics of the first row of the periodic table. Often, only the series C2 to F2 is covered, so as to take into account the paramagnetism of dioxygen, and the triple bonded nature of dinitrogen (but never mentioning the strongest bond in the universe!). Rarely is diberyllium mentioned,  and yet by its strangeness, it can also teach us a lot of chemistry.

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