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The approach of G. N. Lewis to the sharing of electrons between atoms in what came to be called the covalent bond was, in advance of the discovery of quantum theory, a piece of profound chemical intuition. In the light of the various advances since that time, it can scarcely be viewed now as a sound chemical theory. A perusal of a number of papers in this Journal that mention Lewis structures would suggest that Lewis theory is now widely represented as an early and simplified version of valence bond theory.
It is suggested that, in introducing valence, it would be better if Lewis structures were to be replaced by a totally empirical approach to covalent bonding. For non-majors from the biological or biomedical sciences, it could then be appropriate to progress to a simplified molecular orbital description of chemical bonding, since this approach readily interprets the molecular properties of simple molecules.
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