Why is a single carbon bond harder to break than one of the double carbon bonds?
Dr. Gordon Tomasi, UNC emeritus professor, explains that a single bond is a sigma bond, resulting from the overlap of hybrid orbitals from the two carbons involved. In a double bond, there is one sigma bond and one pi bond between two carbons. The sigma bond, in theory, is more difficult to break than the single bond between carbons in a saturated compound such as ethane. This is explained as being due to a shorter bond length and thus a greater overlap of orbitals. The second bond between two carbons, e.g. in ethene, a pi bond is formed by an overlap at two locations of unhybridized p orbitals. With less overlap the bond is more easily disrupted and the bond is “not as hard” to break. When an electrical charge travels in lightning to Earth, what is the width of the column of air? According to C. D. Ahrens in Meteorology Today, it is the return stroke, the upward surge of positive charge meeting the downward flow of electrons, that is more visible and the one generally identified as a
