What constitutes an “impossible molecule”? Well, here are two, the first being the topic of a recent article[1]. The second is a favourite of organic chemistry tutors, to see if their students recognise it as an unusual (= impossible) form of a much better known molecule.
References
- J.H. Marks, X. Bai, A.A. Nikolayev, Q. Gong, C. Zhu, N.F. Kleimeier, A.M. Turner, S.K. Singh, J. Wang, J. Yang, Y. Pan, T. Yang, A.M. Mebel, and R.I. Kaiser, "Methanetriol─Formation of an Impossible Molecule", Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 146, pp. 12174-12184, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c02637