Chemistry — 5-topic bundle

Chemistry starts with matter, which is anything that has mass and takes up space. We classify matter in several ways.

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk on Pexels

Atoms are super tiny, but they're not indivisible. They're made of even smaller bits called subatomic particles:

Ionic bonding is all about achieving a stable electron configuration, usually a full outer shell (like noble gases). This often means having eight valence electrons, known as the octet rule.

Photo by Tara Winstead on Pexels

Photo by Vitaly Kushnir on Pexels

When atoms form a covalent bond, they share one or more pairs of electrons. This sharing allows each atom to achieve a stable electron configuration, often a full outer shell (like noble gases). The number of bonds an atom typically forms depends on how many electrons it needs to share to fill its outer shell. For example, carbon needs 4 electrons, so it often forms 4 bonds.