Oxidation and electron density

[Kiarash Khademi]

Hi, I am a little confused on oxidation and electron density, I know that electron density is essentially the amount of bonds an atom has surrounding it, but I am confused about oxidation. Isn’t it essentially the same as electron density?

[Gary Voigt 1F]

Electron Density is a reference to the probability of finding electrons in different positions around an atom. While the covalent bonds of a molecule can typically indicate that one electron is likely to be found around the atom, the electrons are still shared. The oxidation number treats the bonds of even a molecule as though they were ionic and gives the hypothetical charge that would result on each atom were this to be true. The more electronegative atom is assumed to have taken the shared electron when calculating oxidation while this is not true of electron density.