planes

[asalest 2K]

how would you know if atoms in a compound are in the same plane or not?

[Stuti Pradhan 2J]

To figure out if compounds are in the same plane or not, you have to look at the shape of the compound. Compounds that are linear, trigonal planar, bent, t-shaped, and square planar are all coplanar, which can be seen by their molecular geometries which have all the atoms in the same plane.

Hope this helps!

[Sahaj Patel Lec3DisK]

In addition to looking at the shape of the compound. look at the bonds present. When there are pi bonds, the molecules bonded with pi bonds cannot rotate, while those solely with sigma bonds can. Essentially, all double and triple bonded molecules cannot rotate, but single bonded molecules can. This does change the dimensionality depending on which part of the molecule you look at. Hope this helps!

[simona_krasnegor_1C]

The geometric shape gives a lot of information on the planes! I like to visualize that shapes like how Lavelle used the 3_D models during lecture. What is said above about sigma and pi bonds is also very useful and I didn't know that before!

[Nina Tartibi 1F]

Like Simona said, I also like to think of the geometrical 3D shapes of the molecules, because for example, by looking at a linear molecule, you could see that the atoms are all on the same plane (co-planar), but a molecule that is trigonal pyramidal would not have atoms on the same plane, for if you look at the lone pairs on the central atom, they seem to push the other atoms down, making the central atom--for lack of a better word-- above the other atoms.