# How do two or four ligands arange themselves around a central metal molecule?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-two-or-four-ligands-arange-themselves-around-a-central-metal-molecule/236975>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 28, 2004, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-two-or-four-ligands-arange-themselves-around-a-central-metal-molecule/236975 "2004-03-28T22:13:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2004, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-two-or-four-ligands-arange-themselves-around-a-central-metal-molecule/236975/1 "2004-03-28T22:13:06Z")

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Alright, a brief chemistry question here about how the MO theory predicts a ligand arrangement. All of the ligand-metal arrangements that I have dealt with so far are just six ligands around a central metal atom, but our book glances over two ligand linear and four ligand square planar/tetrahedral arrangements. The six ligands make sense because you get one s, three p, two bonding d orbitals, and three d non-bonding orbitals and it all works out with the number of electrons you have compared to the number of orbitals, but when I try to go back and redo the same thing for two and four, it doesn;t work out.

Could someone just explain what two or four ligand MO models look like, or point me to a resource with them?

Gracias  
Threemae