Properties of Water and Their Importance to the Natural World

"When the well is dry, we know the worth of water."-Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richard Almanac, 1746)
Water is a polar molecule with covalent bonding between the electronegative oxygen atom and the hydrogen atoms. Plainly stated, polarity refers to how polar a chemical bond is. To find the polarity one must take the difference between the electronegativities. If the result is below 1.8 and above 0.3, the bond is polar. Thus the attraction of polarity is electrical, slightly positive hydrogen of one molecule is attracted to the slightly negative oxygen of a nearby molecule. …