orbital hybridization

Orbital hybridization is a concept used to describe how atoms in a molecule bond together. In atoms, electrons occupy regions called orbitals, which have specific shapes. When atoms bond, these orbitals can combine or "hybridize" to form new, mixed orbitals with shapes and energies optimized for bonding. This process explains the geometry of molecules—like why water has a bent shape or methane is tetrahedral—by showing how orbitals blend to create stable, directional bonds. Essentially, hybridization provides a way to understand the spatial arrangement of bonds based on the mixing of atomic orbitals.