Pauling's original work on electronegativity

Linus Pauling's original work on electronegativity introduced a scale to measure an atom’s ability to attract electrons in a chemical bond. He recognized that some elements, like fluorine, strongly attract electrons, while others, like cesium, do so weakly. Pauling assigned numerical values based on differences in bond energies, showing that greater differences indicate more polar bonds. His work helped explain how atoms bond and form molecules, providing a systematic way to understand chemical reactivity and properties. Pauling’s electronegativity scale remains a fundamental tool in chemistry to predict bond behavior and molecular structure.