Question: I read that:

> 
> Take a cupful of water in a beaker and add a few drops of dilute
>  sulfuric acid. Heat the water. When it starts boiling add copper
>  sulfate powder slowly while stirring continuously.
>  Continue adding copper sulfate powder till no more powder can be
>  dissolved. Filter the solution. Allow it to cool. Do not disturb the
>  solution when it is cooling. Look at the solution after some time. Can
>  you see the crystals of copper sulfate? If not, wait for some more
>  time.
> 
> 
> 

So why is sulfuric acid required in this experiment?

Answer: 
The reason behind this is the orientation of the overlapped orbitals. Sigma bonds result from head-on(co-axial) overlapping while pi bonds are outcome of lateral(para-axial) overlapping. Here is a pictorial representation of ethene(sp2 hybridized C atoms) : 

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/g7mqW.jpg) 

***The greater the extent of overlapping, the higher the probability of finding the valence electrons in between the nuclei and hence the bond will be stronger & shorter.*** 

In MOT, this can be explained using [Overlap Integral](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_overlap). This is how Atkins depicts it :

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bJicn.png) 

***In simple terms, after forming a sigma-bond (a pre-requisite for pi-bonds), the two atoms get locked along the inter-nuclear axis. As a result, the orbitals available for pi-bonding can only partially overlap, thus forming a weaker bond.***
As stated previously, it is due to the head-on overlap of sigma bonds and the lateral overlap of pi-bonds.

The smaller overlap of pi bonds also explains why double and triple bonds basically exist only for 2nd row elements (C,N,O especially) and not for higher row elements. A C=C bond has a length of 133 pm. A Si-Si bond length is at around 186 pm, therefore the contribution of the pi-integral overlap is almost negligible. 

The inability of Silicium to form strong pi bonds is also one of the answer why life on earth is carbon based and not silicium based, since the richness of organic chemistry is in part due to the ability of carbon to form strong double and triple bonds.