Degeneracy

[Briana Yik 1H]

In degeneracy, when W=X^N, what does the x represent and how do we figure it out?

[lizettelopez1F]

X represents the number of states and I believe that the number of states will always be given to us

[Parth Mungra]

X represents the number of locations that the atoms (the number of atoms is n) can be in.

[chloewinnett1L]

We did a problem at a PL session where the number of states wasn't explicitly given, but we were given the chemical formula of the molecule. In this case, you would draw out every possible orientation of the molecule. Think Lewis structures/molecular geometry. For example, the molecule SO2F2 has six different orientations because the F and O atoms are situated around the S atom and can be arranged in 6 different ways. I don't know how to draw a picture on here, so think of the following as 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, and 9:00, respectively: OFOF, FFOO, OOFF, FOFO, FOOF, OFFO. The LA said that if we were asked to determine the number of states on a test given the chemical formula, it probably wouldn't be any more complicated than this.

Hope this makes sense!

[Andrew Bennecke]

The X represents the number of possible orientations in which a molecule could exist. If we were to draw every resonance structure of a molecule (Ignoring changes in bond order), they would each represent a different orientation of the molecule.