Now the question is what keeps these atoms in the compound
together?
What keeps the two sodium atoms and oxygen atom together in
sodium oxide?
What about zinc and the two iodine atoms in zinc iodide?
What about carbon and the two oxygen atoms in carbon
dioxide?
And, lastly, what about oxygen and the two hydrogen atoms in
water?
What keeps atoms together in in the molecule of a compound (and
also in the molecule of some elements) is an attractive
electrostatic (electromagnetic) force, referred to as a chemical bond or simply bond.
–Remember an electrostatic force is a force between
oppositely charged particles.