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Author JD Lee says in his book, Inorganic Chemistry

The dipole moment of $\ce{XeF6}$ is approximately = $0$ because the lone pair is present in the stereochemically inactive s orbital.

What is this stereochemically inactive s orbital? What does the statement mean?

PS: Please don't provide links to any web pages as I have gone crazy by the definitions they provide and also please try to explain it in an easy language and not some very technical chemistry as I am not an expert.

Jan
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Aaryan Dewan
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    Well, it means it doesn't affect stereochemistry of compound; it's shape is almost unaffected by it's presence. – Mithoron Sep 17 '16 at 20:45
  • http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/50187/what-is-hybridisation-of-xef6-in-solid-state http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/10151/what-is-the-problem-in-predicting-the-structure-of-xef%e2%82%86-with-vsepr – Mithoron Sep 17 '16 at 20:47
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    S-orbital is spherical in shape , so any particular direction is not favoured, hence stereochemically inactive. – JM97 Sep 18 '16 at 00:12
  • Why are we closing the old question as a duplicate of the new question? (@Mithoron) – Jan Sep 08 '17 at 10:02
  • @Jan Ortho seems keen on making new better ones... – Mithoron Sep 08 '17 at 21:20

1 Answers1

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An s-orbital is basically a pretty perfect sphere around the nucleus.

A sphere transforms upon itself no matter which element of symmetry you use. Thus, it cannot be the basis of any kind of chirality or other asymmetry.

If therefore the s-orbital is the only one that carries free electrons able to generate a dipole moment, none will be formed because it would be spherical.

(I know this answer bases quite a bit on circular — or should I say: spherical? — reasoning, but I wouldn’t know how else to write it …)

Jan
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