Copyright © University of Cambridge. All rights reserved.  'Bent
Out of Shape' printed from  Show menu   When a molecule consists
of one central atom with several others covalently bonded to it
the electrons in these bonds repel each other. The result of
this is that the bonded atoms will be oriented as far away from
each other as possible, eg. The angle formed between the two
oxygen atoms (the "bond angle") is $180^\circ$ - given that the
length of the bonds are fixed the oxygen atoms could not be
further apart.   Here, the central boron has three fluorine
atoms bonded to it. The angle between any two fluorines is the
same and it is $120^\circ$ . Again, the three F atoms could not
have arranged themselves to be further apart. This occurs
because the bonds are formed of pairs of electrons, which carry
a negative charge. If two bodies (in this case bonds) are
negatively charged they will repel each other. Draw diagrams to
represent the structures of the following molecules. Can you
work out what the bond angle