Could someone describe the tetrahedral basis of organic chemistry?
Briefly, carbon has 4 electrons in it’s valence shell. This means it can form a maximum of 4 covalent bonds, each containing one of these electrons plus an electron from the other species it’s bonded to. The 4 pairs of electrons in the covalent bonds repel each other (read about something called “Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion Theory”) and move as far apart as they can. This causes the electron pairs (and bonded species) to orientate in a tetrahedral arrangement about the central carbon. Methane, CH4, is probably the simplest example where the carbon has tetrahedral geometry. Check out the images on this Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane I hope that makes some sense.
