Bonds are the ties that bind chemistry

The humble lines that link atoms and connote chemical connections in molecular structures are the simplest of chemistry’s iconography. Yet those seemingly simple sticks belie our most complex and clouded concept: the chemical bond.

Bonds are chemistry’s key intellectual property, but they are also a somewhat illusory idea. The chemical bond is a contingent and approximate concept, a chimeric heuristic that is moulded and adapted according to our need. Indeed, chemists still argue about what constitutes a bond, how it should be defined and whether they even really exist. Although if bonds are purely an invention, then it is one so supremely useful and utterly seductive that it is chemistry’s greatest work of fiction. In this issue, we’re celebrating the bond in all its fuzzy incarnations.