Text: Electronegativity, according to L. Pauling, is "the power of an atom in a molecule to attract electrons to itself." With the concept of electronegativity, a vast number of observations of chemical and physical properties have been either correlated or predicted. Quantitative definitions and scales of electronegativity have been based not on electron distribution itself but on properties which were assumed to reflect electronegativity. The electronegativity of an element depends upon its valence state and thus is not an invariant atomic property.

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