Posts Tagged ‘stereochemical’

Combichem: an introductory example of the complexity of chemistry

Sunday, December 19th, 2010

Chemistry gets complex very rapidly. Consider the formula CH3NO as the topic for a tutorial in introductory chemistry. I challenge my group (of about 8 students) to draw as many different molecules as they can using exactly those atoms. I imply that perhaps each of them might find a different structure; this normally brings disbelieving expressions to their faces.