Development of Chemical Nomenclature

The first concepts of elements and atoms emerged as early as the 5th century be. 

At that time, fire, water, soil, and air represented the pillars of the four-element apprenticeship. Metals were extracted as pure elements in the present sense), even if they were not yet recognized as such. They were designated by astronomical and astrological symbols. 

In 1814, J.J. Berzelius succeeded for the first time in systematically naming chemical substances by building on the results of quantitative analyses and on the definition of the term element by Lavoisier. In the 19th century, the number of known chemical compounds increased so rapidly that it became essential to classify them, to avoid a complete chaos of trivial names (see Section 2.2.4). 

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It is not the function of this chapter to trace the development of chemical nomenclature in detail this has already been done by Croeland in a very readable book [11], where references to the literature can be found. But it is useful to highli t here some important historical developments. 

Verbal communication had necessitated the development of chemical nomenclature, and its standardization made indexes of the chemical literature possible. The earliest tracking systems depended on conventional substructure methods with edge-punched cards. 

The practice of assigning ad hoc names to organic compounds was neither avoidable, nor burdensome when only a small number of compounds were recognized. Such ad hoc names are termed "trivial" or "traditional," to indicate that they contain no encoded stmctural information. They are useful for common compounds, and many of them are retained to this day, but they are not helpful in understanding chemical relationships. As they proliferated, the number and variety of them became unmanageable. The development of systematic nomenclature was driven by this circumstance, and was made possible by advances in understanding and determining the stmcture of molecules. 

In order to specify the structure of a chemical compound, we have to describe the spatial distribution of the atoms in an adequate manner. This can be done with the aid of chemical nomenclature, which is well developed, at least for small molecules. However, for solid-state structures, there exists no systematic nomenclature which allows us to specify structural facts. One manages with the specification of structure types in the following manner magnesium fluoride crystallizes in the rutile type , which expresses for MgF2 a distribution of Mg and F atoms corresponding to that of Ti and O atoms in rutile. Every structure type is designated by an arbitrarily chosen representative. How structural information can be expressed in formulas is treated in Section 2.1. 

Correct use of the language, especially the written language, is an important factor. Law, like chemistry, demands a specialized vocabulary. Chemists, of course, are required to use a system of chemical nomenclature which is complex but logical. It further requires a person to develop precision in using words. In chemistry, for example, there is not much difference in the spelling or often in the pronunciation of words such as... 

The evolving domain of radial, as well as linear, addition of modules to form an expanding moiety, in a manner akin to the development of polymers, referred to as "dendrimers", is examined and nomenclated The direct inclusion of topology in the description of isomers, once a very insignificant part of chemical nomenclature, is now a factor to be reckoned with, not only for the small class traditionally referred to as "topological" (including catenanes, rotaxanes, and knots), but also as new compositions of matter, such as the endothelial fullerenes, are formulated. 

Most students of chemical nomenclature will agree that a broad general pattern which is capable of extension to diverse types of compounds is preferable to a number of specific patterns of limited extension. Inasmuch as most compounds of higher order can and should be looked upon as coordination compounds, coordination compounds encompass an extremely broad field. The development of a satisfactory scheme of nomenclature for these compounds may solve many nomenclature problems. If coordination compounds represent a fundamental pattern of chemical combination, there should be a sound basic plan for the nomenclature of this broad class of compounds. 

Development of Chemical Symbols and Their Relation to Nomenclature... 

DYSON—DEVELOPMENT OF CHEMICAL SYMBOLS AND THEIR RELATION TO NOMENCLATURE 101... 

Several molecular compounds have common names that you use every day, such as water, ammonia, and alcohol. But common names can cause confusion. Does ammonia mean ammonia the pure gaseous compound or a solution of ammonia in water, as it is sold in stores And, there are severed compounds known as alcohol. Clearly, a more accurate system of naming compounds is necessary. So here, and in Chapter 4, you can learn how compounds are named following the international rules of chemical nomenclature. The goal of nomenclature is to develop a name that gives all the necessary information to allow someone else to construct the formula of the compound, and vice versa. 

The origins of chemical nomenclature can be traced back to andent China and Egypt [11-14]. Since then, chemical nomendatuie has developed in a cyclical fashion, with existing practices being adequate for a time, then becoming progr dvdy more Inadequate until a ends... 

The first step in the development of a supporting theory was the introduction, by Dalton in 1803, of symbols representing single atoms rather than any amount of an element. This led to the first attempts to represent chemical structures by structure diagrams (Figure 3). The structure diagrams provided the needed theoretical basis for the recently-proposed systematic nomenclature and laid the foundation for the continued development of systematic nomenclature and for the eventual introduction and devdopment of notations and connection tables. 

The first concerted international effort to develop coherent policies for systematic organic nomenclature was made by the International Commission for the Reform of Chemical Nomenclature at the Geneva Congress in 1892. From the Commission developed what is known today as the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (lUPAC), whose declared function is to systematize and codify existing nomenclature practices insofar as they are determined to be sound. Such efforts have been well documented [15] and have resulted in the publication of comprehensive rules for systematic inorganic and organic nomenclature [16,17]. Paren-... 

Lavoisier showed by a series of unique experiments that combustion was due to the combination of a burning substance with oxygen and that when carbon was burned, fixed air (carbon dioxide) was produced. An earlier proposed substance phlogiston therefore did not exist, and the phlogiston theory soon disappeared to be replaced by the carbon cycle. Lavoisier used the laboratory balance to give quantitative support to his work and he used chemical equations in his papers. He further defined elements as substances that could not be decomposed by chemical means and firmly established the law of the conversation of mass. He developed a chemical nomenclature that is still used today and founded the first chemical journal. 

Many chemical substances were given names before anyone knew what their compositions were. When a substance s name does not seem to be following the rules, it just means it was named before the modern rules of chemical nomenclature were developed. The older name is often retained because that s what people are in the habit of using. 

A new, fully developed nomenclature system was published in 1984 by the Japanese chemist Hirayama. The system known under the name HIRN contains many novel ideas and is accepted as an important development in the field of chemical nomenclature. The approach is to use a nodal configuration for acyclic and some cyclic structures, and a system based on the arrangement of six-membered rings for aromatic compounds and related structures. This latter approach is then extended to cover other ring sizes by use of prefixes denoting reduction and enlargement of the ring size. 

Development of computer methods for the interconversion of chemical nomenclatures to and from molecular formulae, connection tables, and structural diagrams followed and seems to continue to follow two separate paths. On the one hand there are a great many reports, mainly from university sources, dealing with translation of systematic names into structural diagrams, and on the other hand there is relatively limited literature on translation of structural diagrams directly into systematic chemical names. Although these are two opposite directions of the same conversion, they have in practice very little in common as far as algorithms and applicable methods are concerned. 

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