| The Pauling Scale |
| The Pauling scale was devised in 1932 by Linus Pauling. On this scale, the most electronegative chemical element (fluorine) is given an electronegativity value of 3.98 (textbooks often state this value to be 4.0); the least electronegative element (francium) has a value of 0.7, and the remaining elements have values in between. On the Pauling scale, hydrogen is arbitrarily assigned a value of 2.1 or 2.2. |