[Sammy5124]

I have a chemistry book that says "When a bond is formed (of whatever kind), energy is released, and that makes the things involved more stable than they were before"

The first thing I thought of is that maybe it is referring to the physics momentum formula, where momentum before collision(bonding) = momentum after collision(bonding), resulting in an overall drop in kinetic energy of the atoms involved after a bonding, is this true?
And if the atoms involved have lost kinetic energy (and kinetic energy is indication of temperature), doesn't that mean the solution is colder than it was before the bonding?

If so, when the kinetic energy that atoms possess is lost, what form is it converted into? xrays? sound? infrared?, microwaves?

What does it mean when it says 'things involved become more stable than they were before'? What is stability in this context?

[kennnho]

an overall drop in kinetic energy, yes, but that doesn't mean that the solution is cooler than it was before the bonding, because the loss of energy is in the form of heat energy, thus releasing heat to the surrounding. this is called an exothermic reaction whereby the energy released to the surrounding is in the form of heat energy, i understand the confusion as i myself was confused when i first encountered this topic, you would think that the temperature will drop as a result of loss of kinetic energy, but you see, when you measure the temperature, you're actually measuring the heat released by the particles as a result of bond forming. so like you said, bond forming causes the atoms to lose kinetic energy, but where to? the surrounding, and what is the surrounding? the thermometer, the water in the solution, etc.

Not sure what does your country call this chapter but the chapter called Thermochemistry and you should learn more about exothermic and endothermic reactions soon.

If the situation is like what you said, the solutions ends up cooler than it was before, that would mean that the atoms absorbed heat during the reacting thus causing the kinetic energy in the atoms to be high than it was before the reaction, causing a drop in temperature, thus an endothermic reaction. google it up and i'm sure you'll find plenty of info.

Sorry i couldn't answer some of your questions, i'm just trying to help you to get a better understanding of what i know currently, if i have made any mistakes while explaining i'm sorry, i only wish to tell you what i've learnt in the past two years. just a student trying to help another student have a better understanding of chemistry.

[Sammy5124]

an overall drop in kinetic energy, yes, but that doesn't mean that the solution is cooler than it was before the bonding

Isn't temperature, and kinetic energy of the atoms involved, the same thing? I always thought of temperature as a measurement of the average amount of kinetic energy of the atoms making up something.

But when the atoms release heat (the bonded atom's electrons move down to a lower energy level after bonding, releasing infrared?), isn't that absorbed by nearby atoms, increasing their kinetic energy? So shouldn't at the very least, the temperature of the solution remain the same?

If you had two atoms; A (mass =5, velocity = 2), and B (mass = 3, velocity = 4)
Momentum of A = 5 * 2 = 10
Momentum of B = 3 * 4 = 12
KE of A = 0.5 * 5 * 4 = 10
KE of B = 0.5 * 3 * 16 = 24

The atoms then bond;
Momentum of A+B = 22
velocity of A+B; 8 * V = 22 -> v = 2.75
KE of A+B = 0.5 * 8 * (2.75)^2 = 30.25

So 3.75 kinetic energy has been lost; let's say it has been emitted as infrared, and nearby atoms have absorbed that infrared, increasing their kinetic energy; shouldn't the system have exactly the same amount of energy that it originally started with, leaving the temperature the same, but not increasing it?

If the temperature has increased, doesn't that mean that the atoms in the system have more kinetic energy than it originally started with? and since energy can't be created or destroyed, only change forms.. I'm confused.

[magician4]

I have a chemistry book that says "When a bond is formed (of whatever kind), energy is released, and that makes the things involved more stable than they were before"

to start with this, bond formation often will release energy, yes, but not always.
The important part for things to happen (without external energy input) is that the total system might release energy (into the environment of the system) thereafter
... and only if it did, was this loss of energy stabilizing the system (as it would need exactly this energy lost to be forced back into the system to reverse things)
Pathway for this energy output usually is heat,though other mechanisms of relief might occur (for example, light)

The source of this energy usually is NOT the energy of collision of the respective particles (alone): this energy of collision mostly is required to get things goin', i.e. overcome the initial "barrier before reaction" ("activation energy" E_a)

Speaking in terms of classical physics, the source however comes from electrostatics. You've got positively charged nucleii, negatively charged electrons, and the nearer they're allowed to approach , the more energy will be set free.
Now, the how near the electrons are allowed to come depends on a lot of factors (and this picture is highly simplified), but basically that's what chemistry is all about: "stable" (i.e. of low energy) substances will have extremely favourable electron ./. nucleii "arrangements , geometries..."

When quantummechanics comes into picture, there are no well-definded "places" for electrons no longer ( and hence no such thing as "distance nuleus - electron") and the understanding of the fines of the wave functions and their "energy" becomes a bit more complicated.
However, the original picture still holds: even in quantum mechanics, the energy that might be released is a electrostatic effect (not just between point type charges)


regards

Ingo