Understanding conformational relationships makes it easy to draw idealized chair structures for cyclohexane and to visualize axial-equatorial interconversion. After quantitative consideration of the conformational energies of ethane, propane, and butane, cyclohexane is used to illustrate the utility of molecular mechanics as an alternative to quantum mechanics for estimating such energies. To give useful accuracy this empirical scheme requires thousands of arbitrary parameters. Unlike quantum mechanics, it assigns strain to specific sources such as bond stretching, bending, and twisting, and van der Waals repulsion or attraction.

Problem sets/Reading assignment:

Reading assignments, problem sets, PowerPoint presentations, and other resources for this lecture can be accessed from Professor McBride's on-campus course website, which was developed for his Fall 2008 students. Please see Resources section below.

Resources:

Professor McBride's web resources for CHEM 125 (Fall 2008)