Lone Pairs

[Brandon Padilla 2L]

When drawing Lewis structures, why must valence electrons always be in pairs as opposed to them being in different positions but maintaining the same amount of electrons.

[Gabrielle Malte 2G]

This configuration follows Hund's rule, which states that electrons in the same subshell occupy different orbitals with parallel spin. We draw atoms with up to 4 valence electrons with lone pairs, and then complete the spin pairs as we move from 4 to 8 valence electrons.

[Noa Popko 3I]

We have electrons paired together because that is how we expect electrons to be around the atom. Recall that we know electrons pair up in groups of two for each orbital. Drawing lone pairs hints at this principle.

[rachelsjordan 1K]

Electrons are always in pairs because I'm pretty sure they are more stable that way and you fill lower levels first with parallel spin so you end up with two per orbital

[Sidharth Paparaju 3B]

I believe that they are in pairs since when we look at orbitals, when there are 8 electrons (ns^2np^6 configuration), each of the orbitals has 2 electrons. So, we pair them since each orbital (4 orbitals, 1s and 3p) holds 2 electrons, each with opposite spins.