The structural formula of a chemical compound is a graphical representation of the molecular structure, showing how the atoms are arranged. The chemical bonding within the molecule is also shown, either explicitly or implicitly. Also several other formats are used, as in chemical databases, such as SMILES, InChI and CML.
Unlike chemical formulas or chemical names, structural formulas provide a representation of the molecular structure. Chemists nearly always describe a chemical reaction or synthesis using structural formulas rather than chemical names, because the structural formulas allow the chemist to visualize the molecules and the changes that occur.
Many chemical compounds exist in different isomeric forms, which have different structures but the same overall chemical formula. A structural formula indicates the arrangements of atoms in a way that a chemical formula cannot.
Read more about Structural Formula: Lewis Structures, Condensed Formulas, Skeletal Formulas, Indication of Stereochemistry
Famous quotes containing the words structural and/or formula:
“The reader uses his eyes as well as or instead of his ears and is in every way encouraged to take a more abstract view of the language he sees. The written or printed sentence lends itself to structural analysis as the spoken does not because the reader’s eye can play back and forth over the words, giving him time to divide the sentence into visually appreciated parts and to reflect on the grammatical function.”
—J. David Bolter (b. 1951)
“Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective positions of the beings which compose it, if moreover this intelligence were vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in the same formula both the movements of the largest bodies in the universe and those of the lightest atom; to it nothing would be uncertain, and the future as the past would be present to its eyes.”
—Pierre Simon De Laplace (1749–1827)