Orientation Question

[Emily_Stenzler_2H]

How do you determine the number of orientations a molecule will have when using the Boltzmann equation?

[Felicia Wei 1B]

This is to find W but basically, for a molecule with 2 states, it would have the formula 2^n where n is the number of entities. The number of states is the number of possible positions each atom in the molecule can take. So if you have 4 molecules of CO the degeneracy would be 2^4.

[Kiyoka Kim 3C]

To determine the number of orientations a molecule would have I draw out the lewis structure and move around the atoms one by one. Then I use the equation for degeneracy W=number of possible orientations^number of molecules and substitute that into the Boltzmann equation.

[Najia Saleem 2G]

How do you determine the number of orientations a molecule will have when using the Boltzmann equation?

Also, recall that you may need to multiply by 6.022x10^23 to get the number of molecules!

[Ritika Prasad 1A]

Adding on, using the lewis structure to determine the molecular geometry of the molecule will also help you visualize the different positions that the atoms can occupy to figure out their different arrangements.