My university tutorial yesterday covered selective reductions of functional groups in organic chemistry. My thoughts on that topic have now morphed into something rather different. Scientific research has a habit of having this sort of thing happen.
Archive for December, 2010
Morphing an arrow-pushing tutorial into a dihydrogen bond
Thursday, December 2nd, 2010Anatomy of an arrow-pushing tutorial: reducing a carboxylic acid.
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010Arrow pushing (why never pulling?) is a technique learnt by all students of organic chemistry (inorganic chemistry seems exempt!). The rules are easily learnt (supposedly) and it can be used across a broad spectrum of mechanism. But, as one both becomes more experienced, and in time teaches the techniques oneself as a tutor, its subtle and nuanced character starts to dawn. An example of such a mechanism is illustrated below, and in this post I attempt to tease out some of these nuances.