Talk:Octet rule

message: The article mentions that ozone does not have an octet...does this refer to one of the less stable resonance structures?  I am assuming this is the case for carbon monoxide.--GregRM 19:42, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is wrong. I think the author is confused with the fact that atoms in those molecules have formal charge. But they definitely do follow the octet rule. --Spoon! 20:08, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ozone exception 

message: Could anyone list a sound physical reason why atoms tend to react until their valence shell is full? I know I understood this once, probably after taking an QM class years ago, but I can't remember or find this information. --User:67.169.18.217 (talk) 1 July 2006
:In short, electron pairs, acting as little spinning magnets, are favored due to "electron spin coupling" effects, in which 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc., are all favorable shell filling numbers; however, the "crowding effect" of having too many negative charges, which are attracted to the positive nucleus, located in one area creates a break-up tendency such that a crowd of 8 is optimal, kind of similar to the 150 of the Dunbar's number phenomenon or similar to why elements past atomic number 92, i.e. uranium, become unstable.  I hope this helps? --Sadi Carnot 15:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is simply untrue. Electrons infact unpair in atoms to form states with the highest spin (Hund's rule) e.g. Phosphurus with three electrons in its 3p shell has the three unpaired electrons (not two paired). Note (as my comment below) Hund's rule is not an explanation just a statement about the sign of the coupling between the electron spins (i.e. its ferromagnetic not antiferromagnetic). There are plenty of other examples in physics where antiferromagnetic couplings are the rule. For an explanation of Hund's rule look into so-called Fermi holes and Fermi heaps. Bcbccouk (talk) 12:21, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  But why? 

message: I have a real problem with the statement that PCl5 conforms to the octet rule.  This claim in the "Disputed' section REQUIRES a valid reference.
Why? Because you can't multiply 5 by 2 and get 8; that is: on its face, Anything bonded to 5 Cl atoms can NOT obey the Octet rule - as a matter of fact Any-one-Atom bonded to 5 ANYTHING fails since a 'bond' is, by defintion, sharing 2 electrons. Next time I am passing this way, if the offending section is not cleaned up/justified, I will remove it. ... I also have a problem with the lede that claims the rule is explicitly limited to "atoms of low (<20) atomic number".  It is NOT.  It often fails as At. No. increases, so what?  It remains the Best 'first guess'. Upon closer reading, this whole article is a mess. It mentions a dodectet rule, but there is no such thing. (That is, unless a single reference to an article should be weighed equally with decades of references to ONLY the octet rule?) It fails COMPLETELY to provide ANY good references to any of the myriad of text books that define the rule. What happened to the old article? I know that this used to be better than this current crud.  Wikipedia seems to be declining in quality. The octet rule hasn't changed for decades.  We now better understand where it is applicable and where it fails, but this is the context of the Rule, not the rule itself. It is, unless things have changed dramatically since I was an undergrad (?), a SIMPLE way to sketch out the Lewis Structure of a molecule or ion.  If you need to run a computational model in order to determine the sketch, then whatever you have done is not the Octet Rule. (Although may be consistent with it). To summarize, this article has lost sight of the purpose of the rule, which is PREDICTION.Abitslow (talk) 18:47, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It is true that the sections you have criticized need some rewording and clarification, as well as references. However an encyclopedia article should not only present the original rule, but also assess its validity in the light of current knowledge. The point for PCl5 is that the structure with five covalent bonds is now known to be a poor description of the molecule. Better descriptions use resonance structures which each have four covalent and one ionic bond, or else three-centre four-electron bonds. I will try to find time to improve the article in order to explain this properly and add more references. Dirac66 (talk) 00:43, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed: PCl<sub>5</sub> 

message: Isn't noble gas configuration really just the octet rule?--Officer781 (talk) 07:52, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: On second thought I would merge the content into octet rule but turn the page into a disambiguation that also refers to the 18-electron rule since that page also references noble gases.--Officer781 (talk) 01:11, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal 

message: This article's "History" section attributes this quote:
"During the formation of a chemical bond, atoms combine together by gaining, losing or sharing electrons in such a way that they acquire nearest noble gas configuration."
to:  Lewis, Gilbert N. (1916). "The Atom and the Molecule". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 38 (4): 762–785. 
However, this quote appears nowhere in that article by Lewis.  
The quote could not have come from Walther Kossel's article because Kossel's article was written in German.
VexorAbVikipædia (talk) 23:24, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  History:  misattributed quote 

message: Octet rule 119.2.125.162 (talk) 14:38, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chemistry