polarizability

Examples of polarizability in the following topics:

• Scattering of Light by the Atmosphere

  • Rayleigh scattering is due to the polarizability of an individual molecule.
  • where I is the resulting intensity, I0 is the original intensity, α is the polarizability, λ is the wavelength, R is the distance to the particle, and θ is the scattering angle.

• Variation of Physical Properties Within a Group

  • As you move right along the table, however, polarizability and van der Waals interactions predominate, and as larger atoms are more polarizable, they tend to exhibit stronger intermolecular forces and therefore higher melting and boiling points.

• Nucleophilic Substitution

  • With increasing polarizability (which goes hand-in-hand with increasing size of the nucleophilic atom) and basicity comes increasing nucleophilicity, although basicity and polarizability can have opposing effects (ex: iodide is less basic than fluoride but is larger).

• Elimination

  • Hydride is also very useful, because it resembles a point-charge and is not polarizable enough to operate as a nucleophile.

• Polarization

  • This constant is the degree of their polarizability (the extent to which they become polarized).

• Nitrogen Compounds

  • This allows for electrostatic interactions between the ammonium cation and various negatively charged or polarizable species in proteins.

• Signal Strength

  • Pi-electrons are more polarizable than are sigma-bond electrons, as addition reactions of electrophilic reagents to alkenes testify.