A Bonding Quandary-or-A Demonstration of the Fact That Scientists Are Not Born With Logic

We document here a spirited debate among three colleagues and friends who have strong opinions on a specific bonding problem, the presence or absence of a cross-ring sulfur-sulfur bond in a trinuclear Cu3S2 cluster. The example may seem esoteric, but through their struggles with this specific bond (and with each other) the authors approach the more general problematic of chemistry, the chemical bond. The discussion focuses on bond lengths and the population of bonding and antibonding orbitals, and on oxidation states, electron counting, and associated geometries. It expands to encompass other bonding criteria, and introduces examples ranging far across organic and inorganic chemistry. The authors suggest molecules that might test their ideas. An Appendix to the paper discusses a mat er rarely broached in the chemical literature-should one review for publication a paper which criticizes one of your own contributions.