Talk:Carbanion

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[edit] Trigonal planar?

After the recent change (kudos for all the work, by the way), it now says that the carbanion exists in a "Trigonal planar". How is that? The trigonal planar geometry is for sp2 hybridized atoms, unlike a carbanion, which is sp3, which three substituents, and the pair of electrons filling the fourth sp3 orbital. I've changed it to tetrahedron. okedem 21:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks for the correction: I checked with March and he says: Trigonal pyramid (chemistry) (like it was in the text). My confusion started with re-reading the Olmstead article where it speaks of a planar geometry, but I was not paying attention. What to do: switch back to Trigonal pyramid (chemistry) like it was or make it Tetrahedral molecular geometry ? V8rik 21:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I think trigonal pyramid would be more appropriate, as this is closer to this case - it's just like ammonia, which is mentioned in that article. The tetrahedral article talks about four substituents, which would be confusing, since you would need to count the lone pair as a substituent.

You created some more work for me, you know? This article is on my watchlist because I translated it to Hebrew. Now I have to translate some more... okedem 22:06, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• • switched to Trigonal pyramid (chemistry). Happy translating! V8rik 22:35, 1 December 2006 (UTC)