Final answer:
Carbon is more attracted to fluorine than bromine because fluorine has a higher electronegativity, which means it can attract bonding electrons more strongly than bromine.
Step-by-step explanation:
Is carbon more attracted to fluorine or bromine? The answer is a) Carbon is more attracted to fluorine. Electronegativity is the measure of an atom's ability to attract and hold electrons, and fluorine has the highest electronegativity value (EN = 4.0) of all the elements. This means that in a bond with carbon, fluorine will attract the bonding electron pairs more strongly than bromine, due to fluorine's greater electronegativity compared to bromine's. Electronegativity decreases as you move down the group in the periodic table and hence bromine, which is lower than fluorine, has a lower electronegativity. For example, when comparing bond polarities, such as a carbon-to-oxygen double bond, we see that the bond is quite polar since the more electronegative oxygen atom attracts bonding electrons more than the carbon atom does, resulting in a partial positive charge on carbon. Applying the same concept, carbon-to-fluorine bonds are even more polarized due to fluorine's higher electronegativity.