Weak Bonding

Listen, my imperfect flower, I have concluded that the answer to us is in the air and in the stones at our feet and in the water that laps at the edges of our world.  The answer to how we survive together is there.  And our answer is this: We must bond together weakly.

Consider, first, the stone nearest your feet.  That stone, as all others like it, is comprised of atoms that cannot live alone in this rough-and-tumble universe of ours.  Within the stone are atoms from different elements.   Living alone, the atoms are unstable and irritable as feral cats.  The electrons in their outer shells swish about recklessly and will readily jump ship, so to speak, at the first opportunity.  A chance meeting of two such unstable elements can be disastrous.  As example, if a sodium atom happens to come into contact with water, the sodium atom catches on fire.

Not a positive outcome.

To avoid a world filled with constant spot-fires, the frenzied atoms of different elements have found ways to bond together and overcome all of this dangerous instability.  In the stone, the atoms have created ionic bonds.  In ionic bonds, the atom from one unstable element will actually seize an electron from another element.  In this way, both elements lock together and become stable in the form of an electrically charged molecule.  The molecules then develop into floor tiles and tooth brushes and cell phone parts.  

Well, not quite that easy.  A certain amount of manipulation and Chinese manufacturing is likely required.

These ionic bonds are fantastically strong.  If you doubt that, try popping a rock into your mouth to see if you can chew it to bits.  The downside to such strong bonds, however, is that they are inflexible.  Smack two stones together and one or the other will likely break into pieces. 

But there is another type of bonding, my dear, which might be a superior model: covalent bonding.

Weak bonding.

In covalent bonding the atoms of two unstable elements will generously share the outer (valence) electrons of their outer orbital shells.  No seizing and taking here—this is more like the two atoms are holding hands.  This is all cooperation and sharing.  The end result of weak bonding is relative softness and flexibility.   The water all around you and gases are formed by means of covalent bonds.  Metals, which are strong and flexible at once, are also formed by weak bonding. 

Would we be wrong to strive for a weak bond, to be like gold or silver?

Each element always retaining a singular identity, but joining together—embracing—to become a new whole of another sort.

--Mitchell Hegman