To properly picture chemistry at the molecular level, you need to have a good
sense of what molecules look like. One way to develop the ability to
visualize molecular geometries is through the use of models. The pages
below contain links which will let you download software for viewing molecular
structures on the computer. Two programs are provided: Chime and RasMol.
Both are freely distributed. Of the two, Chime is my favorite.
It is a plug-in for Internet Explorer and Netscape that lets you see and manipulate molecular models
embedded in a web page. Using this feature, we have prepared a series
of pages showing how to deduce the shapes of molecules, complete with models
of all the common shapes. The only drawback of Chime is that you may
not be able to install it if you are working on a public computer on campus.
The second program, RasMol, is just a viewer for chemical
structures. We have provided a series of links that will let you
download structure files for various molecules. To view the structures
with RasMol, you will need to leave the browser and open RasMol. The
advantage to this is that RasMol is small enough to fit on a floppy disk,
so you should be able to download it and run it on any computer. (Also,
many computers in campus labs have RasMol installed.) In either case,
the software should help you to become familiar with the shapes. Hope
you enjoy it....
Download the Software
Tutorials
Common Molecular Geometries