What substance has a stronger force of attraction between its particles water or methane?

Answer 1

water has very high intermolecular forces called hydrogen bonding, methane is nearly unaffected by it's neighbor methanes. oxgyen has a high electronegativity value, making the water molecule mostly negative near the oxgyen and positive near the hydrogen atoms. this causes a polar molecule, which are attracted to nearby molecules of water. that's why water has such a high boiling point for being such a small mass molecule. methane has carbon central, four hydrogen's at the "corners". carbon's electronegativity is about 2.6 to hydrogen's 2.1. net the carbon gains these electrons mostly in the covalent bonds, but all four hydrogens become a sort of "positive" zone since they "lose" their bonding electron most of the time to carbon. since all the outer atoms (the hydrogens) for all of the local methane molecules are the same, all this positive charge repels from each other, making for much lower boiling points, little intermolecular attraction. linus pauling won the noble prize in chemistry for his work in this bonding phenomenon.