Posts Tagged ‘Hiberty and co’

Kekulé’s vibration: A modern example of its use.

Friday, June 6th, 2014

Following the discussion here of Kekulé’s suggestion of what we now call a vibrational mode (and which in fact now bears his name), I thought I might apply the concept to a recent molecule known as [2.2]paracyclophane. The idea was sparked by Steve Bachrach’s latest post, where the “zero-point” structure of the molecule has recently been clarified as having D2 symmetry.[1]

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References

  1. H. Wolf, D. Leusser, M. Jørgensen, R. Herbst‐Irmer, Y. Chen, E. Scheidt, W. Scherer, B.B. Iversen, and D. Stalke, "Phase Transition of [2,2]‐Paracyclophane – An End to an Apparently Endless Story", Chemistry – A European Journal, vol. 20, pp. 7048-7053, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/chem.201304972

The weirdest bond of all? Laplacian isosurfaces for [1.1.1]Propellane.

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

In this post, I will take a look at what must be the most extraordinary small molecule ever made (especially given that it is merely a hydrocarbon). Its peculiarity is the region indicated by the dashed line below. Is it a bond? If so, what kind, given that it would exist sandwiched between two inverted carbon atoms?

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Quintuple bonds: part 2

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

In the previous post, I ruminated about how chemists set themselves targets. Thus, having settled on describing regions between two (and sometimes three) atoms as bonds, they added a property of that bond called its order. The race was then on to find molecules which exhibit the highest order between any particular pair of atoms. The record is thus far five (six has been mooted but its a little less certain) for the molecule below

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