Collections:Texts:Chemistry:Chapter 12 - CHEMISTRY OF THE REPRESENTATIVE ELEMENTS
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CHEMISTRY OF THE REPRESENTATIVE ELEMENTS
12.2 Group IIA: Alkaline Earths
Most of the preceding chapters in this book have been devoted to explaining fundamental concepts and principles such as the atomic theory, electronic structure and chemical bonding, intermolecular forces and their effects on solids, liquids, or gases, and classes of reactions such as redox or acid-base. It is well to remember, though, that all these concepts and principles have been developed and used by chemists in order to better understand, recall, and systematize macroscopic laboratory observations. In other words, although the concepts we have described so far have their own inherent beauty as great ideas, they are primarily important because they reduce the quantity of memorization which is necessary to master descriptive chemistry, allowing people to recall facts that otherwise might be forgotten.
Such a reduction in memory work is only possible if you know how to apply principles to specific elements, their compounds, and the reactions they undergo. This is not as easy as it may seem, but neither is it impossibly difficult. In this chapter we will describe some of the chemistry of the representative elements, showing as we do so how their properties may be rationalized on the basis of concepts and principles. The chapter is organized according to the concept of periodicity, with each section corresponding to one of the eight groups of representative elements. As you read it, you should try to see why a certain reaction occurs, as well as what actually happens, and instead of memorizing each specific equation, you should try to organize the chemistry of these elements according to the generalizations you have already learned.
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