Carbon chains, abbreviations drawing

It is often convenient to refer to a chain of carbon atoms by a name indicating its length. You have probably met some of these names before in the names of the simplest organic molecules, the alkanes. There are also commonly used abbreviations for these names these can be very useful in both writing about chemistry and in drawing chemical structures, as we shall see shortly. 

The structure of the normal butane molecule, /1-C4H10, is shown in the adjacent drawing. (The prefixed letter n in the formula is the abbreviation for normal.) The bond lengths and bond angles have the same values as in ethane. The zigzag chain of carbon atoms and the positions of the hydrogen atoms correspond to the stable (staggered) orientation about each of the four carbon-carbon bonds. The n-butane molecule thus presents us with no surprises. 

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