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The article "Three-Dimensional Model for Water" by Johnson and Yalkowsky (1) was quite interesting, and this technique will likely be adopted by other teachers to illustrate these bonding peculiarities. However, I always cringe when I see electric forces like the chemical bond seemingly equated with magnetic forces, even with the disclaimer that this is an analogy. Many students come to general chemistry with little or no understanding of the fact that an electric field is not a magnetic field. The use of magnets to simulate bonding reinforces the mistaken idea that, “since magnetic fields are caused by moving charges, therefore a magnetic field and an electric field are one and the same”. Fortunately for NMR instrumentation and their resulting spectra there is very little magnetism associated with most chemical bonding. Johnson and Yalkowsky offer no references to the many papers in this Journal since 1947 utilizing this magnet analogy, but I am old enough to have a copy of Baker’s 1962 paper (2) which is admittedly not as elegant as the paper we are discussing. Baker gives references back to 1917. With the JCE Index available online, why do authors not reference their predecessors more? Literature Cited- Johnson, J. L. H.; Yalkowsky, S. H. J. Chem. Educ. 2002, 79, 1088–1091.
- Baker, W. L. J. Chem. Educ. 1962, 39, 131.
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