So hopefully this wasn't too tricky. Let's go ahead and start with bond sites. All right? So bond sites for the carbocation, what are those? Well, let's go ahead and scroll up one more time just to see what bond sites were. Remember that I said that bond sites were equal to any atom or any lone pair. And remember that I also mentioned that some people call these groups. Okay? So some textbooks, some online homework might call it groups, some might call it bond sites. There's even another name that I've seen and that name is steric number. Okay? So what I want you guys to know is I really want you guys to know all three because your textbook might use one of these words, but your online homework or maybe a supplemental book that you're using to learn might use a different one. So I just want you guys to realize that if I say bond site, group, steric number, that's all the same exact thing. All it has to do with is things around the atom that are going to repel each other.
Let's go ahead and talk about the carbocation. So the carbocation has three atoms, H, H, H, and then it has a positive charge. Does a positive charge count as a bond site? No, it doesn't. Remember that I said the only thing that counts is atoms or lone pairs. So that means that I have three bond sites. If I have three bond sites, then what is my hybridization? Well, my hybridization, I would look at my summary chart and I would say I have three, so my hybridization must be sp2. That must mean that one s is coming together with two ps and they're making three sp2 orbitals.
So what I'm going to say is that it's sp2. And then we have the tricky one. What is intermediate orbital? What that means is which is the leftover orbital that isn't included in bonding where my positive charge is. Okay. Let me put it this way. We just said that we have three sp2 orbitals. Where are they? I'll show you. The sp2 orbitals are right here. There's one bonding to that H, there's one bonding to that H, and there's one bonding to that H. Okay? So those are the sp2 orbitals. By the way, what is this bond going to look like completely? Remember that. What kind of orbital does an H have? Do you remember? An H is just a 1s orbital. Okay. So what I have here, let me use a different color for that since we have two different orbitals. What I have here is a 1s, a 1s, and a 1s. So those are the 1s's. And those are overlapping with sp2. So if I were to describe this bond, if I wanted to say what kind of bond is this? What I would say is that it's a 1s-2sp2 bond. Why? Because I have a 1s orbital from the hydrogen overlapping with an sp2 orbital from the carbon. Remember that it has three of those. It's overlapping with one of those and that's making a sigma bond that has those properties. Isn't that interesting? So I just wanted to show you guys that notation because in a lot of practice problems, professors will ask it just like that. They'll say, what kind of bond is this? Or can you find all of the bonds that are like this? All right.
So that was a little bit of a detour, but I still think that's a good learning moment. Okay? So the question here though is that how many sp2 orbitals do I have? I have three. I have one sp2, another sp2, and another sp2. All right? But how many orbitals does this molecule have total? It has four. So what is the leftover orbital? If you look up here, the leftover orbital is this p orbital that never hybridized. That p orbital is the one that's going to get the intermediate in it where it's going to get the positive charge. The reason is because I just showed you the sp2s are already bonding. All of these are taken up by an H. Okay. So that means that the positive charge must go where? The positive charge must be in an empty p orbital that is not bonded. Okay. I know that drawing is really messy, but that's the point of this question.
Okay. So the positive charge is in the p and the other three sp2s are making three bonds. Does that kind of make sense? Let's move on to the carbanion. For the carbanion, how many bond sites do I have? Well, I have three atoms and then I have a negative charge. Is a negative charge a bond site? Actually, not necessarily. I need to