26. Van't Hoff's Tetrahedral Carbon and Chirality

Freshman Organic Chemistry (CHEM 125)

With his tetrahedral carbon models van't Hoff explained the mysteries of known optical isomers possessing stereogenic centers and predicted the existence of chiral allenes, a class of molecules that would not be observed for another sixty-one years. Symmetry operations that involve inverting an odd number of coordinate axes interconvert mirror-images. Like printed words, only a small fraction of molecules are achiral. Verbal and pictorial notation for stereochemistry are discussed.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Interpreting the Rotations of Light for Optically Active Compounds
09:25 - Chapter 2. Van't Hoff's Proof of the Existence of Chiral Allenes
19:57 - Chapter 3. Superimposition, Mirror Images and Handedness: Chirality in Alice's Looking Glass
36:24 - Chapter 4. How Special is Chirality?
41:04 - Chapter 5. Conclusion: Exploring Stereochemistry

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

This course was recorded in Fall 2008.