Chapter 20, Problem 67P

You’re taking physical chemistry, and your professor is discussing molecular dipole moments. Water, he says, has a dipole moment of “1.85 debyes,” while carbon monoxide’s dipole moment is only “0.12 debye.” Your physics professor wants these moments expressed in SI. She tells you that the atomic separation in these two covalent compounds is about the same, and asks what that indicates about the way shared charge is distributed. What do you tell her?