Originally posted by DA Morgan:
One of the strongest bonds you will find in chemistry is lithium fluoride (LiF). Lithium is the lightest of the alkali metals and fluorine the lightest of the halides.
Uranium Iodide, on the other hand, is rather weakly bound as is dehammer's statement.
He should just acknowledge this and move on.
your talking compounds. the bonds of compounds are different than the ones that hold two of the same type atom or compounds togethers.
perhaps weight was the wrong word, but its close. everything has some attraction to everything else. i dont know the scientific terms for this, but its what causes particles in space to pull towards each other if they are in simular postions.
the same thing happens on a atomic level. what counters this is the energy of the election shell. the more energy there is, the higher the shell those electons inhabit. the larger the shell, the farther apart the nucluses are. as with all things that are attracted in such a manner, the attraction is the square root of the distance. IF the distance between the nucliuses doubles, the attraction is reduced to the square root.
while at rest (low energy), the atoms may form crystals, at higher energy, they are too far apart to hold their form. Thus the shapes melt.
of course since it would destroy the universe for you to be wrong, i dont expect to to accept this.
