Foundations of Organic Chemistry

Exploring organic chemistry's foundations with a review of the basic science of chemistry; getting an engaging introduction to organic chemistry; its origin, evolution, relationship to carbon and its applications in food, fuel and medicine.

Looking at atomic structure and chemical bonding; learning what drives an atom's desire to bond; the differences between ionic bonds, covalent bonds and polar covalent bonds; studying the hybridization of atomic orbitals; carbon frameworks.

Studying methods scientists employ to communicate the right structural information about molecular compounds; exploring how Fischer projections and Newman projections help overcome the problems of conveying the three-dimensional positions of atoms.

Depicting molecules as they exist as time passes; learning about this scientific art form, including writing reaction schemes, expanding them into elementary steps and using curved arrows to chart molecular progress.

The proton transfer reaction is one of the first of several fundamental classes of reactions; the three classifications of acids and bases; the Arrhenius, Bronsted-Lowry and Lewis definitions; how chemists predict proton transfer reaction outcomes.

Learning the handedness of molecules; the definition of chiral tetrahedral centers; the creation of stereoisomer sets via inversion of handedness; intriguing examples of stereoisomers, including enantiomers; their unique chiral centers.