No Such Thing as a Salt Molecule

A crystal of table salt is not a bag of NaCl molecules. It is one lattice — cations and anions alternating in every direction, each ion pulled by all of its neighbours at once. That single structural fact predicts everything the topic asks of you: why the melting point is enormous, why a hammer shatters the crystal instead of denting it, and why the solid refuses to conduct while the melt happily does.

8 STEPS · 6 QUICK CHECKS · NaCl LATTICE · v1