Monday, January 29, 2018


How does a chiral center affect the number of signals in H-NMR? (It can make some nuclei diastereotopic, and therefore, non-equivalent, so the number of signals increases. - GS).

What makes a peak more intense in IR Spec? (Larger change in the dipole moment during the vibration, corresponding to that peak. - GS).

Wednesday, November 8, 2017


What is the difference between an enol and enolate? (Enol is one of the two conjugate acids of enolate. - GS).

Would Butanal and Methanol create a hemiacetal? (Yes, if they react at the 1:1 molar ratio. - GS).

Monday, November 6, 2017


Is methylation a real thing? We learned about nitration, but I don’t think we learned about methylation. (Yes. Methylation is an instance of alkylation, which we learned under nucleophilic substitution and aromatic electrophilic substitution.. It is very real. By methylation of nitrogens, a living body maps its genes to turn them on and off. - GS).

Sunday, November 5, 2017


Which reactions can be complicated by carbocation rearrangements? (Any reaction proceeding through an carbocation intermediate. - GS).

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Just to be sure, can we go over why cumulated is more stable than isolated? (Cumulated dienes are less stable than isolated, because they have fewer sigma-pi conjugations. - GS).