What is the purpose of a Lewis structure? What do the chemical symbol and lines in these structures represent?

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What is the purpose of a Lewis structure? What do the chemical symbol and lines in these structures represent?

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Answer 1 · 2017-05-21T05:56:59

Evidently, a Lewis structure depicts the structure of a molecule. The chemical symbols are the atoms, and the lines are the bonds, containing two bonding valence electrons.

In other words...

$H : H$ $"H"bb( : )"H"$ can be represented by $H - H$ $"H"-"H"$

$: . . O : : . . O :$ $:stackrel(..)"O"bb( : : )stackrel(..)"O":$ can be represented by $: . . O = . . O :$ $:stackrel(..)"O"=stackrel(..)"O":$

$: N . . : : N :$ $:"N"stackrel(bb(. .))( bb( : : ) )"N":$ can be represented by $: N \equiv N :$ $:"N"-="N":$

What are the names of these molecules?

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What is the purpose of a Lewis structure? What do the chemical symbol and lines in these structures represent?

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