In the addition of a nucleophile (Nu) attack to a carbonyl, the BD angle is defined as the Nu-C-O bond angle. The BD angle adopted during an approach by a nucleophile to a trigonal unsaturated electrophile depends primarily on the molecular orbital (MO) shapes and occupancies of the unsaturated carbon center (e.g., carbonyl center), and only secondarily on the molecular orbitals of the nucleophile.
Of the two angles which define the geometry of nucleophilic "attack", the second describes the "offset" of the nucleophile's approach toward one of the two substituents attached to the carbonyl carbon or other electrophilic center, and was named the Flippin–Lodge angle (FL angle) by Clayton Heathcock after his contributing collaborators Lee A. Flippin and Eric P. Lodge.
These angles are generally construed to mean the angle measured or calculated for a given system, and not the historically observed value range for the original Bürgi–Dunitz aminoketones, or an idealized value computed for a particular system (such as hydride addition to formaldehyde, image at left). That is, the BD and FL angles of the hydride-formadehyde system produce a given pair of values, while the angles observed for other systems may vary relative to this simplest of chemical systems.