[Sophia7X]

I read somewhere that carbon and silicon in its pure form can be a tetrahedron ( like phosphorus, P4). I'm kind of doubting this.... Can somebody confirm?

[discodermolide]

Look at the structure of diamond, the carbon atoms are tetrahedral. Silicon as well can have a tetrahedral structure.

[Sophia7X]

Oh, I was thinking of tetrahedrons as in tetrahedral discrete molecules.

[discodermolide]

Look at the structure of methane and SiMe4.

[XGen]

I think she might've been thinking of something like C₄ or something.

[Sophia7X]

Yeah, I mean pure carbon in discrete molecules like what XGen said.

[zeshkani_usa]

carbon with an sp3 hybridization such as CH4 will be about 109.5degrees apart therefore tetrahedron it depends on how its bonded, different bonding results in different geometry, but pure carbon such as graphite/diamond are the tetrahedron geometry, the arrangement of the bonds gives it the ideal bonding to each other