chemistry covalent bonding

A carbon atom forms covalent bonds with four other carbon atoms. Draw the positions of the outer shells of each carbon atom.

Have a glance at the periodic table (Proton no. of Carbon), armed with the fact that the inner shell has two electrons max and the outer shells have eight electrons max, what do you think the answer looks like?

The question says the draw the covalent bonding between each carbon atom.Each carbon atom has 4 electrons in its outer shell, but how will you show a covalent bond between 5 carbon atoms?

I think that's right - Been two years since I've done chemistry though.

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Thank you, but all the carbon atoms don't have 8 electrons in their outer shell. Am I counting wrong or is the middle carbon the only atom that has 8 electrons

Yeah, only the middle one does. I'm fairly sure that's allowed.

If I'm wrong then I'm sure a chemist can correct me

, is there a reason why only 1 carbon has 8 electrons

, is there a reason why only 1 carbon has 8 electrons

Hi, yeah there is.

the question mentions that this is a unit cell of a diamond so we assume that this block is in the middle of the diamond and thus each of the other outer four Carbon atoms is attached to 3 other carbon atoms ( 4 if you include the one it is already attached too). It is a repeating unit essentially

Well, its not really right because that would just be a tiny part of a giant structure, where all the carbon atoms would be bonded to four others. But for the purposes of the question, it seems they only want you to include the electrons that come from the five carbon atoms in the question, ignoring any electrons from other atoms that would be present in the giant structure.

Hi, yeah there is.

the question mentions that this is a unit cell of a diamond so we assume that this block is in the middle of the diamond and thus each of the other outer four Carbon atoms is attached to 3 other carbon atoms ( 4 if you include the one it is already attached too). It is a repeating unit essentially

Beat me to it

H thank you everyone