hi mikewday!
 Quote by mikewday
… why atoms "seek" a full outer shell?
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you mean, why eg does sodium like to buddy-up with chlorine, why isn't it happy just to
be itself?
simple answer: it is happy when it's on its own
but when there's a nearby chlorine atom, the energy level is lower if they share an electron, so they hang around together, and have more energy for doing other things than if they stayed solo