Cubical atom

<p>The cubical atom was an early <a href="/facts/Atom/69syB8dH">atomic</a> model in which <a href="/facts/Electron/L0KBo5cW">electrons</a> were positioned at the eight corners of a cube in a non-polar atom or molecule.  This theory was developed in 1902 by <a href="/facts/Gilbert_N._Lewis/wWnV6QXL">Gilbert N. Lewis</a> and published in 1916 in the article "The Atom and the Molecule" and used to account for the phenomenon of <a href="/facts/Valency_(chemistry)/ck7cHByj">valency</a>.  
Lewis' theory was based on <a href="/facts/Abegg%2527s_rule/7Ufm5Vpm">Abegg's rule</a>. It was further developed in 1919 by <a href="/facts/Irving_Langmuir/mPt8xwUp">Irving Langmuir</a> as the cubical octet atom. The figure below shows structural representations for elements of the second row of the <a href="/facts/Periodic_table/umdGIfUb">periodic table</a>.
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<p>Although the cubical model of the atom was soon abandoned in favor of the <a href="/facts/Quantum_mechanical/BRc3Mzgr">quantum mechanical</a> model based on the <a href="/facts/Schr%25C3%25B6dinger_equation/3csgSIWF">Schrödinger equation</a>, and is therefore now principally of historical interest, it represented an important step towards the understanding of the chemical bond. The 1916 article by Lewis also introduced the concept of the <a href="/facts/Electron_pair/MENP5Gm0">electron pair</a> in the <a href="/facts/Covalent_bond/EzMLf3Pz">covalent bond</a>, the <a href="/facts/Octet_rule/X9jxSsos">octet rule</a>, and the now-called <a href="/facts/Lewis_structure/PTgB3gtW">Lewis structure</a>.
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Cubical atom open-in-new

Cubical atom