Yeah, I also saw Mathew Mahindaratne's answer

Maybe if we look simlpy by the electron withdrawing nature of the biphenyl substittuent as a whole in the (3,4,5) ring, then the meta position i.e. 4 should come out to the preferable answer

@YusufHasan How do you do this? like how do you show this? Is it what I drew in my answer? or something else?

@Safdar Hi

Hey

I feel that this answer might be interesting for you(not realated to the substitution question)

See this and see if it makes sense :)

As for the original thing we were discussing

I guess the meta position can only work out if you make some kind of a partial resonance thing like you did

And if everybody has pointed out 4 as the answer, then I guess that is how we have to take the directing influence of the biphenyl

Some kind of partial resonance caused by partial positive charge

@YusufHasan Nice.. minor nitpick though, the structure on wikipedia is a network solid and it isn't individual molecules.. These mechanism do not work for such molecules right? chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/136.466/… Andselisk's comment

@Safdar No these network solid things are for the solid form, the reactions mostly happen in the aqueous or gaseous form...there these dimer formations are common

For solid network reactions at low temperatures these mechanisms might not work ofcourse

@YusufHasan I talked to Martin about this and he gave me the link to ORCA[its free btw].. He said he would help me. :)

@YusufHasan Oh.. then the answer is cool.

@Safdar Ok nice....I forgot about ORCA, it works good I guess :)

@Safdar Thank you, happy you liked it :)

@YusufHasan Is it fine if replaced your photos with a sketcher copy with Al instead of M?

@Safdar Yeah sure, I didn't have the time to do that

@YusufHasan I am done, you might wanna review before accepting.