electrophilic attack vs. nucleophilic attack

[bruceleehiiiyaa]

i cannot for the life of me understand what hell that even means.

for example, if i have a carbonyl group, i know its succeptible to "nucleophilic" attack because the a carbonyl acts as an electron acceptor.

what is an electrophic attack?! all i know is how to push electrons. why must they have names?!!!

please explain this to me!

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[G1SG2]

i cannot for the life of me understand what hell that even means.

for example, if i have a carbonyl group, i know its succeptible to "nucleophilic" attack because the a carbonyl acts as an electron acceptor.

what is an electrophic attack?! all i know is how to push electrons. why must they have names?!!!

please explain this to me!

electrophile-lover of electrons. It likes negatively charged particles. Therefore, it must have some sort of positive charge associated with it (either a full + or a partial positive charge).
nucleophile-lover of nucleus, or the PROTONS IN THE NUCLEUS. It likes positively charged particles. Therefore, it must have some sort of negative charge associated with it (either a full - charge or partial negative charge). A carbonyl carbon is susceptible to nucleophilic attack because the carbonyl carbon has a partial positive charge (and a full + in it's resonance form). Therefore, whatever attacks it must be negatively charged. If it's attacking a positive charge, it's an nucleophile because it's a lover (phile) of the positive charge in the nucleus (nucleo) of the carbon atom.

 

[crazybob]

in a nucleophilic substitution, the nucleophile has a pair of electrons to attack the R-LG molecule. the pair of electrons from the nucleophile form a bond between the Nu and R. the LG (leaving group) leaves with a pair of electrons taking away the R-LG bond.

in an electrophilic substitution, you have an electrophile that gets substituted by taking a pair of electrons from the original molecule and forming a bond with the electrophile. in doing so, you form a carbo cation and then use a base to take a hydrogen from the molecule. that gives you a pair of electrons to form a bond between the carbo cation and the carbon where the hydrogen was originally bonded.