Tetrahedral Shape Question

[chrisavalos-2L]

I was a little confused in lecture today when we were talking about the tetrahedral shape, so just to clarify, because there are 3 dimensions that we are looking at the tetrahedral shape takes advantage of these 3 dimensions and this is what cause the shape? Also when drawing this structure is it necessary to draw it accurately? That is with the most accurate 3 dimensional structure that we can? Thank You.

[Jeannine 1I]

Yes! Because electrons in the real world are 3-dimensional, the electrons maximize their repulsions to each other, and do their best to have as much space between each other as possible. This results in the tetrahedral shape Dr. Lavelle mentioned in class.

As for drawing it out, I'm not too sure, but I don't think we would need to draw it 3-dimensionally because VSEPR shapes get more complicated and drawing them out would be difficult.

[isarose0]

Yes, because molecules exist on a 3 dimensional axis, they use space in directions X, Y, and Z. This is the reason why the angles are 109.5 degrees instead of 90 because they have room to evenly distribute into the Z plane as well creating a larger angle.

[mayra martinez 1D]

Adding on, we have to draw tetrahedrals in 3D because of the number of bond lengths and so we include the axis x, y,z. When we want to represent a bond in the z axis we draw IIIII lines to represent a bond behind the central atom and we draw a dark triangle to represent a bond to the front of the central atom.