So we studied high school chemistry. Covalent bonds. We learned about nice, well-behaved molecules. Carbon, for instance, with a valence of 4. Hydrogen, 1.
Next, shalt thou combine the two. For each carbon, shalt thou count four hydrogen atoms, no more, no less. Four shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be four. Five shalt thou not count, neither count thou three, excepting that thou then proceed to four. Six is right out. Once the number four, being the fourth number, be reached, then regardest thou the newly made Methane Atom.
After these magic incantations, you turn around, smugly satisfied with your knowledge of chemistry, content that all is well in the world, and then someone shoves this under your nose:
It’s called methanium. It’s really just an ion, an extra proton stuck to that methane atom. It really does not want to exist, so much so, it’s a superacid, which is to say its acidity is greater than that of sulfuric acid.
Okay, so maybe methanium is not quite as evil as dimethylmercury, which really should have no right to exist in a sensible universe, but I daresay, the very existence of methanium already should inform us that we do not live in a sensible universe.
