The 14th edition is required this year. Recitations start next week. No quiz the first week. But first we need to know what are the chemicals that need to be made if we are to create one net E. coli cell. We will use our discussion of the water molecule as a springboard for introducing different types of chemical bonds that are important in biology.
Covalent bonds are very strong bonds.
We can compare the strength of various chemical bonds by noting the amount of energy it would take to break the bond . The oxygen nucleus is more electronegative than the hydrogen nucleus, that is, it attracts the shared electrons more strongly than the hydrogen nuclei. As a result, the O is slightly negatively charged and the H's are slightly positively charged. As a result of this polarity, each water molecule can be attracted to another water molecule, depending on the orientation. The hydroxyl group is polar, for the same reason as in water.