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Mistake Master · AP Chemistry · Unit 2 · Step-Through Animation

The Well Is the Bond

You'll learnhow one dip in a graph gives you a bond's length and its strength.

Two hydrogen atoms drift toward each other, and everything Unit 2 asks about their bond — how long it is, how strong it is, what it costs to break — turns out to be readable off the shape of one dip in a graph. Twelve short steps; press Next for each one.

12 STEPS · 6 QUICK CHECKS · H2 · 432 kJ/mol AT 74 pm · v4

two atoms falling into a well · how deep, and how wide
Before you start
What you're looking at
Two hydrogen atoms far apart at zero potential energy, with the axes drawn but the curve not yet plotted.
The question
As the atoms approach, what happens to their energy, and where do they stop?
Step 1 / 12