As a freshman college student in gen chem, we talk have talked about dipoles as more of a qualitative characteristic while the text book alludes to the idea that dipole moments have quantitative values. My quesiton is, what is the mathematical process to achieve such answers, for example:

CH₃Cl (chloroform?) has a dipole moment equal to 1.92 debeyes

ah maybe it has to do with the sums of the vectors created from difference of electronegativity?

The dipole moment depends on the charge and the separation distance (p = qd), so it would be related to the electronegativity and the size of the molecule.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_dipole_moment

The electron affinity does count, but not in a simple way. For instance the dipole moment of CO is small with 0.122D. So while it's a matter of charge and distance, predictions are difficult.

Experiment tells. Heavy software that computes molecular orbitals from first principles has a chance. I wouldn't trust too much estimation software that supposes additive rules on molecule subsets.