Bond Lengths
Comparing the two contributing structures of benzene, all single and double bonds are interchanged. Bond lengths can be measured, for example using X-ray diffraction. The average length of a C-C single bond is 154 pm; that of a C=C double bond is 133 pm. In localized cyclohexatriene, the carbon-carbon bonds should be alternating 154 and 133 pm. Instead, all carbon-carbon bonds in benzene are found to be about 139 pm, a bond length intermediate between single and double bond. This mixed single and double bond (or triple bond) character is typical for all molecules in which bonds have a different bond order in different contributing structures.
Read more about this topic: Resonance (chemistry)
Famous quotes containing the words bond and/or lengths:
“The ideal of men and women sharing equally in parenting and working is a vision still. What would it be like if women and men were less different from each other, if our worlds were not so foreign? A male friend who shares daily parenting told me that he knows at his very core what his wife’s loving for their daughter feels like, and that this knowing creates a stronger bond between them.”
—Anonymous Mother. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 6 (1978)
“The minister’s wife looked out of the window at that moment, and seeing a man who was not sure that the Pope was Antichrist, emptied over his head a pot full of..., which shows to what lengths ladies are driven by religious zeal.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)