Hydrogen Bonding vs. Triple Covalent Nitrogen Bonds

(As the title suggest, this post out-nerds all of the rest of you.)

Ridley's post said that some professors believe hydrogen bonding may be stronger than covalent bonding. I didn't believe that for a second. I figure bond strength can be measured by bond enthalpy, so I decided to calculate the average bond enthalpies (more or less) for triple covalent nitrogen-nitrogen bonds (which I always thought were the strongest) and for the hydrogen bonds in water.

According to the Chemistry Data Booklet issued by the august International Baccalaureate Organization, the average bond enthalpy for a N-N triple bond is
944 kJ per mole. That's kJ, mind you.

According to the online article produced for the auguster Wikipedia Organization, the specific heat capacity for water is 2060 J/(kgK).
To get this to J per mole, you just multiply by .018 (Mr of water is 18 grams per mole), which gives you 37.08. So to raise one mole of water one degree in temperature, it takes 37 Joules. I figure to break a hydrogen bond is to raise a mole of water at 0 degrees to 100 degrees and then vaporize it (Van der Waal's force should be negligible). 37.08 times a hundred is 3708 Joules, plus 41 kilo Joules for latent heat of vaporization (thanks again, Wikipedia!) is roughly 78.1 kJ.

So average bond enthalpy for water is 78.1 kJ per mole. About one twelfth of enthalpy for a triple covalent nitrogen bond. In fact, 78.1 kJ per mole is only half of the enthalpy for even the weakest covalent bond listed in my handy-dandy data booklet (Sn-Sn or I-I, both 151 kJ per mole). So covalent bonds SMASH hydrogen bonds.

OK. Go ahead and poke holes in my argument if you want. I've had my minute of glory. But don't expect to top this triumph of nerdy genius.

Speaking of the "vs." game, I was trying to explain it to my family the other day. My mom didn't really get it at first ("So, would you do, say, Apple Pie vs. Cherry Pie?"). But in the midst of this discussion, I had this great idea; you could play the versus game with Apples to Apples cards. O.D.!

May our bonds be triple, nitrogen-nitrogen, and above all covalent,

Sam