Electronic structure Cannizzaro

We said earlier that we can never prove a mechanism—only disprove it. Unfortunately, just as the correct mechanism seems to be found, there are some observations that make us doubt this mechanism. In Chapter 39 you saw how a technique called electron spin resonance (ESR) detects radicals and gives some information about their structure. When the Cannizzaro reaction was carried out with benzaldehyde and a number of substituted benzaldehydes in an ESR spectrometer, a radical was detected. For each aldehyde used, the ESR spectrum proved to be identical to that formed when the aldehyde was reduced using sodi-... 

The electronic and molecular geometries of covalent molecules, and hence their resulting polarities, can thus be predicted fairly accurately. Armed with these tools, one can predict whether or not a molecule should be soluble, reactive, or even toxic, see also Bonding Avogadro, Amedeo Bohr, Niels Cannizzaro, Stanislao Dalton, John Le Bel, Joseph-Achille Lewis, Gilbert N. Lewis Structures Pauling, Linus Thomson, Joseph John van t Hoff, Jacobus. 

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