Atomic Bonds and Material Properties

Everything you touch is held together by atomic drama. Basically, atoms just want

a complete outer shell. Some are thieves, stealing electrons from others.

This creates positive and negative ions that stick together like magnets. That’s ionic bonding,

making things like ceramics hard but brittle. Others are sharers, forming super-strong

covalent bonds. Think of diamonds – it's just carbon atoms sharing electrons perfectly.

Then you have metals, where atoms throw their electrons into a big community pool.

This electron sea is why metals are strong, bendy, and conduct electricity.

So, a material's entire personality—hard, soft, melty—is just about