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Why are hydrogen atoms omitted in bond line notation?

Answer 1

Organic compounds contain many hydrogen atoms.

It would be tedious to draw all the C-H bonds explicitly. And all those H atoms clutter up the structural formulas of large molecules.

So we leave them out. But we then have to remember that each carbon has enough H atoms to make its valence up to four.

Consider hexan-1-ol.

Its structural formula is

Its bond line structure is

The latter structure eliminates the drawing of 13 H atoms and 13 C-H bonds. And it gives a much simpler drawing of the molecular structure.

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Answer 2

Sarah Angotti

Hydrogen atoms are omitted in bond line notation because carbon and hydrogen atoms are implicit. Carbon is assumed to form four bonds, typically with hydrogen, and the number of hydrogen atoms attached to carbon is deduced based on the valency of carbon. This convention simplifies structural representations and makes them more concise.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.