Van der Waals strain
Ok kiddo, imagine you are playing with some really cool toys that fit together perfectly, like building blocks or puzzle pieces. Now imagine that you try to fit one piece onto another piece, but they don't quite fit perfectly. Even though they're really close, they're still too big or too small for each other.
That's a bit like what happens with the atoms in molecules. Sometimes the atoms are different sizes, or they have different amounts of electrical charge. This can cause a type of "struggle" called van der Waals strain, which is when two atoms are too close to each other and they don't fit together perfectly.
But don't worry, this is totally normal and happens all the time in nature. And scientists have even figured out how to predict and measure this van der Waals strain, which helps them understand how molecules work and how we can use them to do really cool things like make new materials or drugs to cure diseases. So if you ever hear the words "van der Waals strain" again, you'll know that it's just a fancy way of saying that atoms sometimes have a hard time fitting together perfectly, but that's okay because we can still do amazing things with them!
That's a bit like what happens with the atoms in molecules. Sometimes the atoms are different sizes, or they have different amounts of electrical charge. This can cause a type of "struggle" called van der Waals strain, which is when two atoms are too close to each other and they don't fit together perfectly.
But don't worry, this is totally normal and happens all the time in nature. And scientists have even figured out how to predict and measure this van der Waals strain, which helps them understand how molecules work and how we can use them to do really cool things like make new materials or drugs to cure diseases. So if you ever hear the words "van der Waals strain" again, you'll know that it's just a fancy way of saying that atoms sometimes have a hard time fitting together perfectly, but that's okay because we can still do amazing things with them!