Chemical Names in Answer To Limitations of Chemical Formulas
The alkene called but-2-ene has two isomers which the chemical formula CH3CH=CHCH3 does not identify. The relative position of the two methyl groups must be indicated by additional notation denoting whether the methyl groups are on the same side of the double bond (cis or Z) or on the opposite sides from each other (trans or E). Such extra symbols violate the rules for chemical formulas, and begin to enter the territory of more complex naming systems.
As noted above, in order to represent the full structural formulas of many complex organic and inorganic compounds, chemical nomenclature may be needed which goes well beyond the available resources used above in simple condensed formulas. See IUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistry and IUPAC nomenclature of inorganic chemistry 2005 for examples. In addition, linear naming systems such as International Chemical Identifier (InChI) allow a computer to construct a structural formula, and simplified molecular-input line-entry system, or SMILES, allows a more human-readable ASCII input. However, all these nomenclature systems go beyond the standards of chemical formulas, and technically are chemical naming systems not formula systems.
Read more about this topic: Chemical Formulas
Famous quotes containing the words chemical, names, answer, limitations and/or formulas:
“We do not want actions, but men; not a chemical drop of water, but rain; the spirit that sheds and showers actions, countless, endless actions.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Ideas about life organize perception; names of emotions organize sensations; rules of syntax organize thought. But pain comes on its own.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, “But what shall I do?” my answer is, “If you really wish to do anything, resign your office.” When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... art transcends its limitations only by staying within them.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)
“You treat world history as a mathematician does mathematics, in which nothing but laws and formulas exist, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow, mathematical present.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)