Significance
Understanding steric effects is critical to chemistry, biochemistry and pharmacology. In chemistry, steric effects are nearly universal and affect the rates and energies of most chemical reactions to varying degrees. In biochemistry, steric effects are often exploited in naturally occurring molecules such as enzymes, where the catalytic site may be buried within a large protein structure. In pharmacology, steric effects determine how and at what rate a drug will interact with its target bio-molecules.
Note the organic chemical example of Stereochemistry of ketonization of enols and enolates where diastereoselectivity results from steric hindrance.
Read more about this topic: Steric Effects
Famous quotes containing the word significance:
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“The hysterical find too much significance in things. The depressed find too little.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)