Chemists often describe the C–H bond as essentially nonpolar, even though carbon and hydrogen do not have identical electronegativity values.
Answer the following prompts related to this assertion.
(a) State whether the electronegativity of carbon is greater than, less than, or equal to that of hydrogen.
(b) Explain why, despite the difference you identified in part (a), the C–H bond is commonly treated as nonpolar in molecular polarity analyses. Your explanation should incorporate both electronegativity-difference arguments and any relevant symmetry considerations.
(c) Identify one experimental property (macroscopic or spectroscopic) that could be used to test the polarity of a C–H bond in an organic molecule, and describe the expected observation if the bond were significantly polar.