Chad's video...Isn't a Tertiary Carbon more electronegative (Pic inside)

[Cofo]

IGNORE THE TITLE...IT MEANT TO SAY "Isn't a QUATERNARY Carbon more electronegative than a Tertiary carbon?

I think the quaternary carbon is more stable, thus it won't be attacked, especially since alkyl groups are electron-donating.
So...the tertiary carbon would be attacked instead. This is Chad's Orgo video 3.1 at around 16:40

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[Cofo]

BUMP 😎
The words in red say "this is a quaternary carbon"
The words in green say "this is a tertiary carbon"

 

[Double Bonded]

Go to Lecture 4.2, he explains it pretty good at the epoxide section.


Btw it's a tertiary carbon. There are no quaternary ones in this molecule.

 

[Potatochips]

IGNORE THE TITLE...IT MEANT TO SAY "Isn't a QUATERNARY Carbon more electronegative than a Tertiary carbon?

I think the quaternary carbon is more stable, thus it won't be attacked, especially since alkyl groups are electron-donating.
So...the tertiary carbon would be attacked instead. This is Chad's Orgo video 3.1 at around 16:40

That's tertiary at the top and secondary at the bottom

 

[HannibalLecter]

Ok how Hydrogens and Carbons differ in their giving electrons character:

We are gonna go off the principle that electrons tend to go to the more electronegative atom in a bond:

1) When a hydrogen is attached instead of a carbon usually the electrons will go to the more electronegative carbon. So the electrons that are shared between hydrogen and carbon (2) are more towards carbon giving carbon a more electronegative character than if it were bonded with a carbon

2) When a carbon is attached the carbon the electronegativity is the same. The atom right next to it in a bond which is another carbon (in this case the methyl group) shares two electrons but its only getting one electron while the other one is getting the other electron as well. No one really wins in this case for the electrons that are in the bond (2)

Review:
When carbon is attached - more electropositive
When hydrogen is attached - more electronegative

Get it?

This topic kinda confused me too until I started figuring out oxidation states of individual atoms in molecules like glucose (try that for practice it really helps)

For example:

In a bond between Ch3OH, whats the oxidation state of carbon = (valence electrons - electrons that it actually has)?
3 H bonds - 3 x 2 electrons = 6 electrons because carbon is more electronegative
1 O bond - 0 electrons because all the electrons go to oxygen because it is more electronegative
4-6 = -2 is the oxidation state of carbon in ch3OH

Try some more on your own. Hopefully that breaks it down for you.