There are actually two ways to break bonds. I just want to teach you guys this really quickly. There's heterolytic cleavage, which means that you get ions. You get, like, a cation on one side and an anion on the other. Heterolytic, where hetero means different, just implies that you get different amounts of electrons on both. Notice that, for heterolytic cleavage, I use a full arrow.
The other option is homolytic cleavage. Homolytic cleavage means that each of the atoms, once the bond breaks, gets the same amount of electrons, so each of them gets a radical. Homolytic cleavage is done with half arrows. Notice that the head of that arrow is a little bit smaller. It's only big on one side. I know my head is right in the way of radicals, but you are going to see radicals.
What I want you guys to know is that, for the most part, in this entire chapter, we’re really just going to be dealing with heterolytic cleavage. We are not going to get into homolytic cleavage until we talk about radical chemistry, which is coming up in a few chapters, so you don’t have to worry about it yet. Cool?